'North Korea's Auschwitz' -- the inside story on the No. 14 detention center
  A report by Kim Yong-sam
  
  North Korea's Auschwitz for Political Prisoners
  The Bloody Record of an Extermination Camp
  Kim Yong claims he saw three foreign men from close range who appeared to be in their 70s.
  Hwang Jang-yop's relatives are interned in the No. 18 detention center.
  
   Kim Yong was earning foreign currency as a cadre at the National Defense Department when he learned that his father had been executed on espionage charges. He was then sent to the No. 14 detention center and when he arrived there he saw 'people who looked like living skeletons' and he realized that no one ever left there alive.
   Kim Yong is the first person known to have escaped from Pyongnam Kaechun, the No. 14 detention center, and to have made his way to South Korea. He testified about 'the National Defense Department guard who shot and killed at will,' and about Kim Chul-min, 'who was shot dead as he picked up fallen chestnuts,' and the ensuing fight among the inmates for those chestnuts. Kim also gave an account of Kal Li-yong, 'the basketball player who was killed for boiling and eating the whip of a guard,' and seeing inmates 'picking through cow dung to find bits of corn to eat and also to eat the fleas feeding there.'
  
  A witness to the absolute control area of a political concentration camp
   We regularly use the word 'hell' to describe things in our lives. We talk about 'examination hell' and we use the term 'hell-way' to describe an overcrowded subway. Yet few people know that they have only to step over the truce line to discover that a real hell exists in which the only purpose is to exterminate human lives.
   North Korean detention camps are places where once you are taken there, not even your remains ever make it out again. (In North Korea, detention camps are called control camps). The detention camps are places where lives are drawn out on 20-30 pieces of corn and salt per meal. They are places where people slave for 15 hours a day in mines; where guards can shoot inmates dead at their discretion, or beat or starve them; where the bodies of inmates are dragged like animals to be buried. They are places where death is a matter-of-course.
   It wouldn't seem so wrong if these people had been dragged off because they'd actually committed a crime. Instead, most of the crimes were things like being the child of a landowner, an expatriate from Japan or damaging a picture of Kim Il-sung. And it wasn't just the alleged perpetrator who got dragged off. Even innocent family members right up to the second and third generation, including children and babies still on the breast, have been taken to the camps and lost their lives. That's because Kim Il-sung and Kim Jung-il's doctrine to 'terminate three generations of the seed of reactionaries' is taken literally.
   In late March, this reporter met with Kim Yong, who escaped from the No. 14 and No. 18 detention centers, which are generally considered to be the most feared detention centers for political prisoners in North Korea, and then defected to South Korea.
   He didn't look well. He was 50, born in the year the Korean war broke out. His face reflected his wretched recent past.
   Kim Yong had the distinction of having lived in both the heaven and hell of North Korean society. His favourable experience came when he was in the National Defense Department, the agency which upheld the system and controlled the distribution of goods. He was a lieutenant colonel, a member of the privileged class. When he worked for the West Sea Asahi Incorporated Trading Company, a foreign currency-generating business under the Defense Department, he had access to US dollars and foreign culture and goods, as well as a chauffeur-driven car.
   But he was swept from heaven to hell overnight, spending five years in a detention center that's better described as a death camp.
  
  The Defector who Experienced an 'Absolute Control Area'
   There are three men, Ahn Hyuk, Kang Chul-hwan (both defected in August 1992), and Ahn Myung-chul (defected in September 1994) who have previous known experience of the detention camps and who have subsequently escaped to South Korea. Ahn Hyuk and Kang Chul-hwan were detained at the No. 15 detention center (Yodok, South Hamkyong Province) in the revolutionized area. Ahn Myung-chul was a driver at the No. 13 (Onsong, North Hamkyong Province) and No. 22 (Hoeryong) absolute control area detention centers.
   By contrast, Kim Yong is the only person known to have been detained in an Absolute Control Area (Kim Yong used the term 'closed area') and to have survived and escaped to the free world. The absolute control areas are reserved for political prisoners and are known as places where once you enter you never come out alive, where not even a corpse leaves.
   According to the testimony of those who have experienced the detention centers, they house not only the person who commits a political crime, but according to the state's premise of guilt-by-association, they also accommodate parents and other family members up to the second and third generation. When the decision is made to send someone to a detention camp, the whole family is often incarcerated in other camps.
   In an interview with the Monthly Choson (March 1995) Ahn Myung-chul related that 'a person who commits a political crime is sent to either the No. 15 (South Hamkyong Province Absolute Control Area) or the No. 25 (Chongjin, North Hamkyong Province) detention centers, and that their families are detained in camps such as No. 14 (Kaechon, South Pyongan Province), No. 15 (Yodok revolutionized area), No. 16 (Hwasong, North Hamkyong Province) and No. 22 (Hoeryong, North Hamkyong Province).'
   The existence of the No. 14 detention center became known for the first time outside North Korea only after Kim Yong defected. According to his testimony, No. 14 is where the inmates are held, while their families are housed at No. 18, which is adjacent to No. 14.
   Thus Mr. Kim is the only person to speak of the existence of the No. 14 detention center in an Absolute Control Area. This camp is where the situation is the most desperate of all the political prison camps in North Korea. To some extent, other defectors to South Korea have already spoken about how North Korea's political prison camps are operated. Kim Yong confirms the testimony of those who have also experienced the camps. As well, Kim Yong's story can be corroborated with previous testimony of other defectors.
  
  Kim Yong's Tragic Life in the No. 14 Detention Camp
   When Kim Yong was sent to No. 14 detention camp he was restricted to working as a miner at the Mujin No. 2 Cutting Face(Mujin2gaeng). Thus he knew nothing about the other areas because he had no freedom of movement outside the area where he was confined. Some 300 other inmates worked with Kim Yong in the restricted area.
   So Kim Yong's story is based on the premise that 'we see the trees, but not the forest.' There are some limitations to his testimony.
   Kim Yong has had three names in his lifetime. His first name, the name his parents gave him, Kim Bong-su; his second name, Park Bong-su; and his third name, Kim Yong. He changed his name to Kim Yong when he defected to South Korea and was issued a Resident Registration Card as a way to help him try and forget his tragic past. Just as he has had three names, his life can be divided into three distinct periods. First the story of the Kim Bong-su period.
   He was born in Taepyong-ri, Jokyeo-myon, Shinkye-kun, Hwanghae Province just before the Korean War broke out in 1950. He lost his parents during the Korean War and when he was four he was admitted to the Pyoksong Orphanage in South Hwanghae Province. Since he was so young when he lost his parents, he had no recollection of them. He lived his life in dedication to Kim Il-sung, who he felt was his true father. When he grew up he stayed solidly loyal to the party and Great Leader. Thanks to the Leader, he grew up as a son of the revolution, a vanguard unit of the North Korean system.
   After graduating from Kangso primary school in South Pyongan Province, he was assigned to work as a labourer for a dredging company which was helping to build a port in the Shinam area, Chongjin City. He also worked on constructing the Ungsang and Najin ports in the Sonbong area.
   He joined the army in 1970 and he earned a place on the judo team (a second lieutenant at the time) with the Tongnogang Sports Team in the General Escort Bureau.
   After the team was disbanded in 1974, he worked for six years in the publishing department of the automated engineering department at Kimchaek University of Technology.
   He was the head of the Korean People's Army No. 489 unit in Wonsan (the equivalent of a lieutenant colonel) in charge of managing the Ministry of the People's Armed Forces Building, when in 1986 he experienced his first major stroke of misfortune. One day his mother (Kim Chan-il), whom he thought had died during the Korean war, suddenly reappeared. At first he couldn't believe that this woman who claimed to be his mother was for real. When he eventually got the whole story from her, it went like this:
   Prior to the outbreak of the Korean war his parents entrusted Kim Yong, his older brother Kim Kwon-su and his older sister Kim Ok-sun with their maternal grandmother in Shinkye-kun, Hwanghae Province. His parents lived in Panmun-kun, just north of the 38th parallel, which generally marks the division between north and south. During the war most people were poor but his maternal grandmother, who had several mouths to feed, was desperately poor. Kim Yong's older sister died of starvation, which really scared his grandmother. Fearing that her two grandsons might also die, she decided to take them to the Pyoksong Orphanage in South Hwanghae Province and say that she had 'found them on the road.'
  
  The Family Register was Falsified so Kim Yong could get into the Ministry of Public Security
   According to his mother, Kim's father (Kim Chong-kuk) secretly moved back and forth across the 38th parallel peddling goods. As a result, he was accused of spying for the Americans and shot. His mother was taken to a reform center in Shinuiju. Kim Yong also later learned that when his brother found out what had happened to his parents, he decided that because of his family background he would never make it in North Korea. He tried to escape to South Korea, but was caught and shot by the Defense Department in Unpa-kun, North Hwanghae Province.
   When Kim heard this story from his mother, he shuddered at the realization that he was no hero, no 'son of the revolution.' Instead, he was a 'son of the enemy.' It was obvious what would happen to him if this were ever revealed. After considerable worry, his mother decided to conspire with relatives to falsify the family register to read that Kim Yong was the offspring of an illicit union between herself and someone by the name of Park Bok-dok, a man from her hometown who had risen to deputy chairman of the Provincial Party Committee. It required a bribe of $10,000 US to make the changes.
   That's when his name was changed from Kim Bong-su to Park Bong-su and his second life began. To those around him who asked, he explained that: 'I lost my parents during the war and when I found them again, I discovered my family name was Park.'
   With his sudden change in class, in 1988, 'Park Bong-su' was promoted from a clerk at the Donghung Trading Co. to become an executive agent(vice president level) of the West Sea Asahi Company Ltd., a company that traded seafood products with Japan.
   The company headquarters were in Hakada, Kyushu, Japan and the company mainly exported flounder and sole to Japan. A monthly salary of $600 US was remitted from Japan directly into the Ministry of Public Security account and the employees were paid in North Korean currency. At the time, Kim Yong earned 180 won per month.
   He made a great contribution to trade with Japan and in 1990 he was awarded the Certificate of Revolutionary Martyr for contributing a loyalty fund of $360,000 US to Kim Jung-il, who subsequently gave special instructions to 'take good care of Park Bong-su in Wonsan City, Kangwon Province.'
   Following orders from Kim Jung-il, the company was moved under the direct supervision of National Defense Department on May 3, 1990. Kim Yong excelled in the fish trade and gained the trust of OOO, a high level cadre at the Defense Department. The high level cadre, who had no idea of Kim Yong's background, regularly praised his work.
   While working at the National Defense Department, Kim Yong had the opportunity to peruse documents concerning his birth parents. According to the documents, his father had worked as a spy for the CIA under the code name 'Virus No. 3' until he was arrested in Panmun-kun and publicly executed (the Panmun-kun, Kaesong City spy-ring incident). There was also a record of his mother being taken to the reform center in Shineuiju.
   Park Bong-su's false identity didn't last long; his cover was blown in 1993. There is a residential area in Pyongyang city close to Kim Jung-il's executive office called the 'Kim Jung-il No. 1 administrative region.' The registrations for all the residents in the area are checked regularly to ensure that they are all pure elements since they could possibly come into contact with Kim Jung-il. Living in this same residential area was none other than Park Chan-hyuk (at the time he was the photography editor at the Minju Choson, the second son of Park Bok-dok, who was Kim Yong's father according to the falsified documents.
   One day someone from the Ministry of Public Security was doing a resident registration check and asked Park Chan-hyuk: 'Is the youngest in your family named Park Bong-su?' Park Chan-hyuk had never heard the name and asked, 'Who is he?'
   The Ministry of Public Security authorities became suspicious and started to check into the whereabouts of Park Bong-su. As a result, Kim Kye-son, the resident registration guidance officer in Suhhong-kun, North Hwanghae province, and others who had conspired to falsify the register to say that Kim Yong's mother had given birth to a son by Park Bok-dok as a result of an illicit relationship, were all rounded up and investigated.
  
  Arrest, Incarceration, Torture
   One day in May 1993, as Kim Yong stepped onto the dock after inspecting a shipload of exports bound for Japan, people appeared from nowhere and grabbed him. Without even knowing the reason, he was arrested and taken to a special agit of Maram in Yongsong District, Pyongyang. The interrogation began and excruciating torture followed. He was ordered to explain the reason for falsifying his personal history and infiltrating the Defense Department. As he listened he realized he was being taken for a spy, or perhaps an anti-revolutionary.
   When I asked him about the torture he said: 'It was so horrific and painful I don't even want to think about it.' Instead, he responded in writing:
   'They apprehended me and took me to the special agit of Maram in Yongsong District, Pyongyang, where they started interrogating me. 'Why did you infiltrate the National Defense Department,' they demanded to know. 'What nerve you have, the child of a spy wearing the mask of a patriot.' They tortured me in many different ways. They put a 5cm X 5cm plank between my thighs and mercilessly stomped on me as I knelt. Then they put handcuffs on me and hung me up so that the tips of my feet barely touched the ground. At night they put me in a solitary tank filled with water up to my belly button and watched me to make sure I didn't nod off. When my whole body swelled up and I collapsed, unable to feel anything, they kicked me and made me stand up again.'
   For three months he was sent several times to the special agit of Moonsu, near the area of the Taedong River in Pyongyang, and there he experienced all manner of torture. They took out his mother's testimony and the testimony of Kim Kye-son, the resident registration guidance officer in Suhhong-kun, North Hwanghae Province and ordered him under threat of more and more painful torture to confess his collusion. He despaired every time he was tortured over that three-month period, and many times he was tempted to capitulate and 'say whatever they want me to say'.
  
  Dragged off to a Concentration Camp of Death
   One night in August 1993 he was taken away in a prison van with shackles on. The van left Pyongyang and travelled for about 4-5 hours. The van stopped at a checkpoint and a creaking heavily-braced door was slowly swung open. He got out in a daze and wondered where he was, when suddenly someone shouted: 'You bastard. Down on your knees!' The driver of the vehicle handed a document to the checkpoint guard and left. Kim was transferred to another vehicle that was waiting for him.
   'Hey bastard, get in.' Right from the outset orders were issued with profanities. Kim didn't know why, but he had to keep his head down on the floor. When he lifted it a bit to look around, the escort demanded to know: 'Hey bastard, why do you keep lifting up your dog head?' The escort then stomped on his head. Kim froze in fear, thinking 'This is it, I am going to die,' forgetting even what severe pain he was in.
   After passing through a series of checkpoints and rattling along for some time, the vehicle finally stopped. When they took off his shackles and he got out, he saw a building with a sign on it that said 'Storage'(a type of storage for provisions) The escort guard ordered Kim to strip and threw him a ragged grey prison uniform. Kim stood there blankly in the nude, not even thinking to put on the stinky old garb. Suddenly the guard said: 'You bastard, do you want to start obeying me? Down on your knees!' Then he smashed Kim Yong's head to the ground.
   The use of the word 'bastard' was standard fare. According to the rules at the No. 14 detention center, when a 'Sir' (the title for the guards) appeared, the inmates had to fold their arms behind their backs turn around and put their heads down on the ground until the 'Sir' passed by, at which time they could scuttle off in the opposite direction.
   A bit later a young fellow appeared who said that orders had been issued 'to send this bastard to join the Mujin2gaeng tunneling brigade.' Two escort guards transported Kim in a prison van and went along a winding mountain road before letting him off around the mid-point of the mountain. Kim saw a sign that said 'Mujin2gaeng' at the entrance to the mine. He shuddered at the cold, desolate sight. Only then did he fully grasp that he had been brought to a concentration camp, a place he had only heard about until then. It was the most infamous detention center of them all, none other than the National Defense Department No. 14 Political Prisoner Control Center. He wondered if he'd ever be able to escape.
   Everything went dark before his eyes. He said he felt like ending it all. Having worked at the National Defense Department, he realized that once he'd been brought to a 'control center' he would never live to see the outside world again.
  
  The National Defense Department No. 14 Political Prisoner Control Center
  'Human skeletons . . '
   Officially Kim was held in the No. 14, detention center located in Deukchang-ku, Pukchang-kun, South Pyongan Province. However, according to Kim's testimony, the administrative area was purposefully misleading. The actual location was a remote mountainous area surrounding Teukchang-ku, Youngdae-ku, Kaechon-kun, Sunchon-kun, Unsan-kun and the main part of the camp was close to Kaechon, South Pyongan Province.
   The guard who took and led Kim to the Mujin2gaeng was his 'Chief Sir.' From that time on, he spent two nightmarish years at the Mujin2gaeng, No. 14 Political Prisoner Control Center.
   He was sent to Mujin2gaeng, located in a remote mountainous region on the right side of the No. 14 detention center. He felt like he had been hit over the head with a hammer as soon as he saw the inmates limping along as they tried to perform their tasks of hard labour. That was because he couldn't believe how thin they all were, with nothing but skin hanging on their bones.
   'When I first saw the inmates, all that was left of them was a human outline, with no fat to be found anywhere on them. They were all dried up, crooked like scarecrows. Besides, they were covered in soot so that they looked like walking stick-men built with soot-covered kindling.'
   Ahn Myung Chul, a guard at the No. 13 and No. 22 detention center who defected to South Korea, has testified that many of the people who work in the camps in North Korea are disabled from accidents. Kim said his first impression of the camps was of 'starving old people bent over so far that they couldn't use their backs, who gasped for breath with every step.' He testified that at the No. 14 detention center there were many inmates who were crippled after losing an arm or leg in a work accident.'
   'Whether they had all their limbs or not, they still had to work to eke out their existence. That is why people with one leg had to make a crutch so that they could at least limp around to do some work.' The inmates work clothes were mere rags from having been stitched so many times. This reporter showed Kim a picture of the inmates at the No. 22 detention center that Ahn Myung-chul had sketched (Monthly Choson, March 1995 issue). Kim looked at it and said: 'These people look a lot better off than those at No. 14.'
   'The one daily meal consisted of 20-30 pieces of raw kernels of corn and salt soup with some cabbage leaves floating on top. It was impossible to do any work on that diet. It took more than 15 minutes to walk 100 meters into the mine shaft. We got dizzy shovelling. We gasped for breath. The mine bosses didn't seem to have any productivity expectations and didn't particularly think that work goals were that important.'
   Yet work was still expected to be performed, because if it wasn't done it was considered by the guards to be 'rebellion against the Republic.'
   All that one could see from Mujin2gaeng was an entrance that looked like a hippopotamus with its mouth open, and beside that a dilapidated barracks which was the workers' residence, a restaurant cum washroom, saw mill, a general pump chamber (see picture below) The barracks was divided into 6 rooms housing 52-53 men in each. Kim Yong recalls there being approximately 300 inmates in the Mujin2gaeng area. The detainees were divided into a tunneling team, preparation team for tunneling, loaders, track layers, rail car operators, saw mill, prop workers etc.
  
  Covetous of a job where you could steal some pig feed to eat
   The doors were made of steel. When work was over at the mine and the workers went into the barracks, the steel door was closed from the outside. When you entered the barracks there was a hallway in the middle and on both sides there were triple-layered wooden bunk beds. There were no such things as blankets, only a broom and a drum cut in half for a urinal.
   Being a coal mine, there was lots of fuel. The heating system was coal-fired and the older men fueled the fire in the barracks. Everyone carried a twig around in their pockets to clean up their buttocks after a bowel movement.
   Ahn Myung-chul testified that at the No. 22 detention center, any woman who became pregnant was executed. Mr. Kim Yong said that 'at the No. 14 detention center, men and women were strictly kept separate so that a pregnancy would be impossible.' During the two years he was interned at No. 14, only once did he see a woman when inmates from other areas were brought in to work on a road improvement project.
   Kim said that because there were informers among the inmates, he was very careful about what he said. Since no one knew who was an informer, there was a culture of suspicion, distrust and hostility amongst the inmates. If an inmate revealed his background or shared a conversation, it would be passed on immediately and they were interrogated. When three or more inmates were caught talking, they were considered to be conspiring and punished harshly. Thus the inmates were in no position to engage in small talk.
   According to Kim Yong: 'In my opinion one in every three inmates was an informant. The reason that informing thrived was that when inmates ratted on those with subversive thoughts, they were moved to a work site where conditions were better than at the mine. If one got dispatched to a farm, at least they'd have a chance to steal some cattle or pig feed. Besides, it was a much better place to be than at the mine, where you never knew when the next accident would occur. Since most inmates could plainly see their lives wasting away from starvation, most would willingly rat on their fellow inmates.'
   That is why, even though Kim Yong was held at Mujin2gaeng for 2 years, he only knew the names of a few people who he worked with on the tunneling team, but never their reason for being there or what they did prior to being sent there. He said the following about Kim Jae-keun, who was the leader of his tunneling team; 'When I was first sent to the tunneling team, Kim Jae-keun told me: 'You don't need to talk here.' After several months he realized I was not planted and we started talking while we were working when no one was around. He once said to me, 'Do you know who Kim Jae-keun is? That's me.''
   Kim Jae-keun had been in charge at the Ministry of People's Armed Forces No. 519 Liaison Office (training center for spies) and he had been a major general in the Korean People's Army. He was purged and taken to No. 14 detention camp for having sided with Kim Pyong-il, a stepbrother of Kim Jung-il.
   Kim Yong said: '[Kim Jae-keun] introduced himself as having made 26 overseas trips and having stolen the blueprints of a new U.S. military tank.'
  
  There were about 15 cases of summary execution over 2 years
   Death was commonplace in the concentration camp. Kim Yong recalls experiencing 'a constant state of anxiety where you never knew when or how you might lose your life.' During the two years he was interned at the No. 14 concentration camp, he recalls approximately 15 incidents that the guards dealt with summarily, and about 25 cases in which men died of starvation or in mining accidents, or of cases where men were called in by the guards and never returned.
   In the vicinity of Mujin2gaeng there were so many chestnut trees that in the fall there be would be piles of chestnuts on the ground. The chestnuts were so inviting, they would open right up after falling to the ground. There were also chestnut trees above the mine entrance and we would pick them behind the guards' backs. But on the mountain not only was the security tight, if we were to put one foot onto the mountain, the guards would consider it attempted escape and shoot us on the spot. So that's why the chestnuts were only rarely eaten, even though we faced starvation.
  
  Witnessing the execution of Kim Chul-min
   It was around October, 1993. There was a railway from the mine entrance that went around the mountainside and was used for transporting coal. There were a lot of chestnut trees in the vicinity and hundreds of ripe freshly-fallen chestnuts alongside the track.
   One day the operator of the coal car Kim Chul-min (he was about 54 at the time and from Taekwan, North Pyongan Province) was returning to the mine when he stopped the car to pick up chestnuts lying beside the track. Suddenly a voice said: 'Hey bastard, don't move.' Kim Yong, who had been moving a railway tie nearby was surprised by the shout and looked in that direction.
   The guard who was in charge of Kim Yong's group was a ruthless character whom the inmates had nicknamed 'Oppashi' (a wild bee that lives in the mountains and has a deadly poisonous sting). Kim Chul-min was concentrating so much on picking up chestnuts that he never even heard 'Oppashi' calling him. The guard ran over and kicked Kim Chul-min in the back, knocking him over. Then he started to assault him.
   Kim Chul-min was spurting blood and moaning. Despite the brutal assault, the guard was not through. He took the pistol from his holster and cocked it.
   'You, bastard, you were a poisonous element when you were out in society. You haven't changed in here either. How dare you revolt against the system. You deserve to die.'
   After shouting this out, he put the gun to Kim Chul-min's forehead and pulled the trigger. At the sound of the gun going off, blood came pouring out of Kim Chul-min's head and mouth. The guard then ordered the group director (the representative chosen by the inmates, a kind of informer) to 'take this bastard away.' The monitor ran over and held the bleeding Kim Chul-min in his arms. The guard screamed: 'Bastard, are you commiserating with a poisonous element? Do you want to share his fate? Just drag him away.'
  
  When the guard was in a bad mood, the chance of getting killed increased
   The monitor folded Kim Chul-min's legs and dragged him along the tracks. Every time Kim Chul-min's head hit a tie it made a thunking sound. Kim Chul-min was still clutching tightly onto the plumply-ripened chestnuts when he was shot. Kim Yong shuddered as he saw the body being dragged off like an animal carcass. Other inmates expressed indignance: 'The bastard should die, he's lower than a dog'.
   'The concentration camp is a lawless zone,' according to Kim Yong. 'The inmates are not killed for any specific crime they have committed, or after going through any kind of legal process. They are killed at the whim of the guards. If a guard is in a bad mood, that increases the inmates' chances of getting killed. That is why the inmates live in a