Shin was born in Camp No. 14 to parents whose union was rewarded by prison guards for excellent work as laborers. Born and raised in the prison camp, Shin thought doign forced labors all day long, getting beatings from guards, and starving from lack of food were normal things that everybody was going through.
However, fourteen years after living in the prison camp his life started changing drastically. His mother and brother were caught trying to escape, and the then-fourteen year old boy was taken undergroudn cell by the guards. For seven months, he suffered from unbearable tortures from the prison guards that wanted him to confess about the family escape plan that he knew nothing about. On Nov. 29, 1996, he and his father were made to sit in the front row of a crowd assembled to watch executions. There, his mother was hung and his brother was shot right before his eyes.
"They built a charcoal fire. Shin was stripped of his clothes. Ropes were tied to his arms and legs and secured to the ceiling of the cell. He was dangled over the fire. When he writhed away from the flame, a guard pierced his gut with a steel hook to hold him in place."
Then, in 2004, his life was going to take another, rather positive, turn. An older cellmate who had worked with him in the garment factory and helped Shin recover from his torture wounds started telling him about life beyond the camp. The world where food was literally everywhere. Once his eyes opened to the world outside of the prison camp, he could no longer focus on the works that he had to do. He wanted to escape and “everyday became an agony”.
On Jan. 2, 2005, Shin and his cell-mate attempted to jump over the electric fence when no guards were in sight. The cell-mate tried to escape first but was electrocuted from the high voltage fence. Then, Shin stepped on his corpse and climb over the fence to the outer world.
Shin stepped over his dead friends body to escape to the outer world
In July 2005, Shin reached China, and in August 2006, he finally arrived in South Korea.
Shin testifies that he does not want vengeance, as he says, “Kim Jong Il is a gangster. If we kill him, we will be just like him.”
Instead, Shin wants to spread awareness about the sufferings in the Concentration Camps. His wish is that South Koreans and the rest of the world would pay more attention to the conditions that people in the prison camps are subjected to and how much pain they feel every single day of their lives.
Shin in South Korea
