"Yodok is a living mass grave"
Interview with Kim Tae Jin
Kim Tae Jin
Actually, Kim Tae Jin should not be made to talk about his life in these surroundings. The contrast between the images in his mind and the surroundings is too great.
Yet this modest North Korean speaks in a calm tone, telling about his youth, the doubts, his first flight to China, his arrest, his four years in the Yodok concentration camp, his release, the forced divorce from his wife, the famine, the second escape, his meeting with Jesus, the journey to South Korea and his life now.
Decisions
"The most difficult thing for me," he says quietly, "is making decisions myself.
"If you ask me 10 times to move a chair around a room, I will do it without even asking myself what the point of it is. But if I have to decide myself which college course I want to follow, I don't know."
This is not surprising. Anyone who has not been allowed to think for himself for 30 years or more is not able to think for himself. Anyone who is used to having decisions made for him is not able to make decisions himself.
Mr Kim was born in 1956 in China. His father was divorced from his mother when Mr Kim was still young. Consequently, he has a few half-brothers and a half-sister.
In 1961, he moved with his father to northern North Korea, and in 1964 to Wonsan, a southern port.
"In my youth, I did not really feel unhappy," says Mr Kim. "We were brought up as Communists.
"General Kim il-Sung had saved the people from the 'rich'. South Korea was occupied by the Americans. One day we would liberate our fellow countrymen from the 'yoke of the imperialists'.
"An important part of our lessons at school was learning by heart the speeches and writings of Kim il-Sung. It would take me 10 years to explain in detail everything I learned. What I can mention is how we were to view the system.
"The party is the mother, Kim il-Sung is the father, and Kim Jong-il is the son. I can no longer recite exactly what we learned at that time: God has removed it from my mind."
"Freedom of choice is an unknown concept in North Korea. It does not exist at all. The party tells us what we have to do. We are treated as a group, not as individuals.
"Actually, what greatly increased one's career opportunities was if you had met Kim il-Sung. Then you had standing. Many people who wanted to be promoted tried their very best to get introduced to him.
"What really annoyed me was that the party also determined what job I would get.
"After secondary school, I had to work in a factory on the production line. It was a very simple job; yet I still believed that North Korea was the true paradise on earth."
Doubts
"I once saw a photo in a book of a South Korean farmer with a sack on his back. Under it was the inscription, 'This poor farmer is being exploited by the South Korean bourgeoisie.'
"But I looked at his clothes and saw that they were much better than ours. Moreover, our farmers worked on the land in the same way.
"And in the newspapers, I saw photos of demonstrations in West Germany and South Korea. The photos were made to be vague, so I could not distinguish very well what sort of buildings could be seen in the background.
"In the caption, it said the people were extremely angry with the ruling class. But at least they were allowed to demonstrate. In my country, that is unthinkable."
In 1986, Mr Kim fled for the first time to China.
First he went to look for relatives who were still living in China. He was not made very welcome:
"My relatives were afraid. They took a great risk by hiding a North Korean.
"Nowadays the penalties for concealing North Korean refugees are much more severe.
"I got a job in a mine. It was not pleasant work, but it was a good place to hide from the authorities.
"To start with, I was very disappointed in China. Here too, there was a communist state which was ruled with an iron fist. I constantly had to be on my guard."
Meeting Christians
In China, for the first time Mr Kim came into contact with Christianity, and he was given a Bible by a Chinese Korean.
"The wife in the family where I was staying invited me to go to church, but I didn't want to.
"I did try to read the Bible, and I started at Genesis. But I didn't understand anything.
"Still I could see from my host family that Christianity was something good – especially the love they had. That made me envious. They were so different from what I was used to."
North Korea's capital, Pyongyang – once known as 'The Jerusalem of the East'
"I was just walking down the road and I came upon some police officers. I even had a Bible with me. They imprisoned me.
"Only in prison did I realise how much better China actually was than my country. The prison food was better than the ordinary food in North Korea."
Mr Kim was repatriated without mercy.
"I was afraid about what was going to happen: would I be executed immediately, or would I be sent to a labour camp?
"Even though I had not yet accepted Jesus as my Saviour, I did pray occasionally. I prayed that I would be released. Eventually he did answer my prayers."
Prison
"I was not tortured much – the situation was torture enough," says Mr Kim, and for the first time a smile breaks across his face.
But then he began describing the eight months he spent in the hands of the secret service:
"They beat me with sticks, and I was given hardly anything to eat. Neither was I allowed to relieve myself, simply because I did not follow their orders.
"I had to sit all day in the same position, which made my legs hurt badly.
"Besides this, we were not allowed to wash or to clean our teeth.
"The lice were jumping all over us, day and night.
"At night I had to survive despite the fleas, lice and the severe cold. A torn blanket afforded hardly any protection."
Some others were worse off.
"The leg of one prisoner was amputated after it was hit by frostbite.
"One prisoner, known as 'Frog', once had to spend a night with the guards, naked. That night it was -20 degrees. His groaning drove the other prisoners and me mad.
"'Frog' could not stand it any more and committed suicide by repeatedly banging his head against the wall."
'Confession'
"It was best to cooperate. They had enough proof. They found a letter at my mother's which I had sent from China. In it, I actually wrote that I did not think China was such a good country, and that it certainly was not much better than North Korea.
"When I was sent to prison, my wife was forced to divorce me.
"Actually, that was a good thing. It meant that my children were no longer related to a dissident. Had they officially remained related to me, their chances of a career would have been thrown away for good.
The hammer, sickle and paintbrush symbolise the unity of the worker, soldier and intellectual/artist
After eight terrible months, on 31 March 1988, Mr Kim was sent to camp number 15: 'Yodok'. The name evokes associations with the death camp of Auschwitz–Birkenau.
This vast labour camp is in the province of South Hamkyung, right in the mountains, which makes it almost impossible to escape.
In places where there is any chance of escape attempts succeeding, tall fences with barbed wire have been erected. Some sections are electrified. Besides this, there are minefields and other deadly snares.
At a distance of two kilometres, there is a seven-meter-tall watchtower. Anyone trying to escape is shot down.
If anyone is captured alive, he or she is publicly executed.
The prisoners are treated worse than cattle. There is hardly any food. In the summer and in the winter, they are given one set of clothes.
Many prisoners succumb to sickness or hunger. Those who are alive look like walking ghosts.
"But when I got to the camp, I was not shocked by this," said Mr Kim. "After eight months in prison, I looked the same.
"Moreover, I again had a bit of hope. The guard at the prison told me I would not be executed.
"I was taken by train. For the last part of the journey, I was in a lorry.
"When we went through the entrance, I was not allowed to look up. I think this was because we first drove through the part of the prison with the prisoners who would never be released.
"We drove for at least 30 kilometres into Yodok before we arrived at my barracks.
"In the camp, all new prisoners are first assessed and divided into three groups: strong, average and weak. This assessment determined how much food you will get and what work you'll be made to do.
"Fortunately, despite my eight months imprisonment, they regarded me as strong.
"I had to work on the land and was sometimes given a bit more food than other prisoners."
Desperate
Normally the food was not more than 100 grams of maize three times a day.
The prisoners had to be inventive. Sometimes Mr Kim was able to make some vegetable soup of edible plants which can be found in the mountains.
"It was very difficult to eat that: much too salty."
North Korean school children are required to spy on their parents
Usually Mr Kim had to get up at around three or four o'clock, as soon as the sun rose. Late in the evening, he returned to his barracks.
"The whole system made me desperate. I saw people dying of hunger and sickness. I saw executions.
"But one day, we had to assemble in a big hall and it was made known that in honour of the birthday of one of the leaders, a few prisoners would be released for good behaviour.
"At that moment, I made the decision that I would be a model prisoner and I would survive this.
"I knew I would have to stay at least three to five years in Yodok in order to be considered for release.
"I determined not to make any mistakes."
Unimaginable
"Because of my period in prison, I had a lot of trouble with my legs and my back.
"In Yodok too it regularly happens that prisoners are beaten.
"One day I had to work on a bullet-proof defensive wall. One of my fellow prisoners was beaten up, undressed and chained up because he had stolen some tomatoes.
"The guards let him lie there all night.
"I crawled over to him and carried him on my back, because he could not get away himself.
"I also saw how a prisoner was brutally beaten because he planted some maize slightly differently than what Kim il-Sung had ordered.
"A prisoner named Choi could not perform his duties because of malnutrition and sickness.
"But he too was beaten and sent to work anyway.
"Choi acted as if he had gone mad. He stole dog food and even chopped the fingers off his hand with an axe.
"I once witnessed the execution of five prisoners. They had tried to escape. The men were bound and masked, made to kneel down and shot with three bullets.
"A last shot was aimed at their heart or head."
'Chance' meeting
"I never expected there would be any Christians in Yodok; but I met the leader of a group of seven Christians who called themselves the Community of Love, and occasionally met in secret.
An impressive 'show church' in the country that is at the top of Open Doors' Worldwatch List
"But I did not want to confess my sins. When he asked me to do so, I closed up and did not say another word."
Yet Mr Kim did ask this man, "How do you know God exists?"
"I don't know," the man replied.
"You know the sun exists because you feel its warmth on your skin. The same is true of God."
Informers
In Yodok, the guards regularly appoint informers. These are prisoners who are obliged to draw up a report every week about what their fellow prisoners do wrong.
One of them betrayed the group of Christians.
"They were all horribly tortured. They grabbed hold of my friend so tight that his arm died and had to be amputated, probably without anaesthetic.
"After that, he and the others were sent to another camp, with an even stricter regime. You do not get out of a camp like that alive.
"After that, I did sometimes try to find some Christians again in Yodok, but with no luck."
Just like all the other prisoners, Mr Kim often thought of attempting to escape, but he realised he had more chance of survival if he kept a low profile.
After three years' imprisonment, a guard told him, "If you behave well this year too, you will be released next year."
Released
On 1 April 1992, along with thousands of other prisoners from his village (Yodok is divided into various villages), he had to report to the big hall.
Two weeks later, it was Kim il-Sung's birthday.
"In honour of the occasion, some prisoners were to be released. When my name was read out too, I could not believe my luck. The joy is indescribable.
"Finally I was to be allowed to leave this hell, this living mass grave.
"It was a miracle that I should get out of there alive.
"The other prisoners who were to be released were also immensely happy. I even once saw that a prisoner in the camp had a heart attack when his name was read out. He died on the spot. What a tragedy."
His last day in Yodok was 10 April 1992.
Then he was put on a train to go to members of his family, who turned out not to want to have anything to do with him:
"After my release, I did not know what I should do with my life.
"Actually, there was only one thing I wanted: to get away from North Korea.
"But as a former prisoner, I was watched by the secret police: I was still in a prison of a sort."
Escape
"It sounds harsh, but the famine of the 90s was a godsend for me.
"Because of that, people went to look for food. Many moved to the north for shorter or longer periods.
"It was not noticed that I slipped away, and the checks were less strict anyway."
Statue of Kim il-Sung outside Pyonyang's 'history' museum
Just like the previous time, at night he found a shallow spot and walked into the icy cold water. Some parts were still frozen. The river bed of round stones was as slippery as ice.
"I simply started to run through the water," said Mr Kim. "It was less than 100 meters.
"At a certain point, I slipped and fell. I hurt myself badly.
"After that, I had to cross the mountainous area looking for a place to hide. Here and there, there was still snow. In some places I went on all fours, like a dog."
Finally, Mr Kim found his hiding place, which we cannot say anything about for security reasons, except that he had various jobs and again came into contact with some Christians.
In December 1997, he was given a Korean Bible and the same month, he was baptised.
Becoming a Christian
Of his conversion, Mr Kim says, "I don't know exactly how it happened. God sought me and I accepted His Word as truth.
"Slowly I began to understand the Bible better. It did not take long before I became the leader of a group of North Koreans, with whom I studied the Bible."
But in China, Mr Kim was far from safe. Actually, he wanted to go to South Korea.
In the spring of 1999, he moved to Beijing, the capital of China, to apply to the South Korean embassy there.
His host family advised him against this: "Impossible, too dangerous," they said.
But in April 2001, Mr Kim came into contact with an organisation which smuggles North Koreans out of the country, but he had to be ready to leave at any moment.
Smuggled
On 8 July, the phone call of deliverance came. They were going to collect him and take him to Mongolia, finally to reach South Korea through that country.
The group consisted of eight persons. They tried to cross the border in two groups of four.
However, six of the eight were caught.
"There is little doubt about their fate. They were sent back to North Korea, tortured and if they survived that, sent to a labour camp."
Mr Kim did reach South Korea safely.
Now he is sitting here in this peaceful environment, just tens of kilometres from North Korea.
"In my country, nothing will change as long as Kim Il Jung is in power. Only God can cause a breakthrough in North Korea.
"But how? Through a war? Through a natural disaster? Let us pray that God will intervene without there being any bloodshed."
Now Mr Kim is taking every opportunity to talk about his country, and especially about the Christians, who are not persecuted anywhere in the world as much as they are in North Korea.
"My personal message is: Show an interest in my country. Pray for it. We need your support.
"Pray also for my personal ministry. I am working for an organisation which supports North Koreans in China."
Download our briefing paper 'Seven Days of Prayer for North Korea' in PDF format (190k)
Related Links: