Welcome to Litsy!

This was a horrific and depressing memoir. Shin was born in Camp 14 in North Korea and lived in a hellish nightmare for 23 years. He was taught to use violence and be an informer at all costs. He was tortured, starved, beaten, used, and he watched his mother hang, watched his brother be shot. He knew nothing about ways of life outside of the camp. Had it not been for another older imprisoned man showing him kindness, Shin might still be⬇️

Interesting and disturbing.

It‘s truly unfathomable fellow humans have to live this way in the 21st Century. I pray one day their human experience is no where near this horrid reality.

North Korea political prison camps.🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯. An unbelievable tail of survival in a very dark nation. Hard to believe this is happening to humans in our world. I learned so much.

Such a tough book! I've read quite many of these North Korea books and I feel like this one should not be the first read if somebody wants to learn more about the country. This tells an interesting story about a man who grew up in the most guarded prison camp in North Korea. This book doesn't give much political or social context and that's why I think this book would give more if the reader has read more similar kind of books.

Started reading this. I can already say that this will be one of the toughest North Korea books I've ever read even though it might also be the shortest.

I am posting one book per day from my to-be-read collection. No description and providing no reason for wanting to read it. Some will be old, some will be new - don't judge me, I have a lot of books.

Day 93th

Join the fun if you want!

#tbrpile

Horrific story.

This book opened my eyes to the realities of North Korean citizens and the government‘s indifference to human rights. I admittedly couldn‘t connect with the survivor (Shin Dong-hyuk) like I did with Nadia Murad and Deborah Feldman in their books but it didn‘t take away from his horrific experience. It‘s shocking that the rest of the world allows North Korea to have these labour camps.

Just started this. Really not sure if I‘ll finish it or not, but considering how dark it looks, I‘m surprised I even started it. 🤷🏻‍♀️ it‘s been on my TBR for a long time and normally I would say “no time like the present” to start, but actually the present right now is pretty weird, you know?

#TIL that part of Shin's story about Camp 14 are untrue. Harden goes over this (and other) problem(s) at the start of the book. There's always the chance of memory deteriorating, being selective, or of fake memories. Still, I believe the fact that #concentrationcamps exist is alarming, good things never happen in them but it does make me wonder, what parts are true and false? #nonfiction #northkorea #biography

#nfnov @clwojick #rsteve388

I don't think I captured the right one but #TIL that #concentrationcamps still exist and are not just something we learn about in #history books. TIL that I can google map at least two in #NorthKorea. TIL that thousands of #political "enemies" are being kept here, some even born in them, where they grow up in a ruthless society with no hope of escape or knowledge of the "outside" world

This is MESSED UP ??

#nfnov @Clwojick @rsteve388

To continue the #nfnov bingo, I went with this one for #biography! Libby had a ton of autobiographies available but not many bios. And of the few, this one looked interesting #nonfiction #northkorea #camp14

@Clwojick @rsteve388

Remind me never to step foot in North Korea. A harrowing account of growing up in prison camps, where people experience the worst of conditions and learn to inform on each other at a very early age. Each human is expendable. The information on the country‘s policies (outside of the camps) was informative and I‘m glad to know more about the country. More needs to be done to address human rights violations in that country.

“When it comes to making money, North Korea is an utter waste of time. South Korea‘s economy is 38 times larger than the North‘s; its international trade volume is 224 times larger.”

The inevitable collapse of the Kim regime will end a humanitarian crisis but accentuates the current economic chaos. Who is responsible for paying the bills?

“North Korea‘s political prison camps have existed twice as long as Stalin‘s Soviet gulags and twelves Times as long as the Nazi concentration camps.”

A gut-wrenching story retold in a news report style. Definitely worth the read as it publicizes some of the atrocities of the North Korean regime. I think it should be noted, however, that Shin has significantly modified his story a couple times over the years. The first edit is noted in the book, and the second occurred in 2015, after publication. None of his versions (true or not) distract from the horrors of the NK political prisoner camps.

He loves showing off for Litsy. #catsoflitsy

Reading again. #readingatwork

These books tell a very #raw story of life in North Korea that is shocking yet true. I can't help but be fascinated (and horrified) by any book on this subject.
#fallintobooks

When you low key snap a photo of the book a mom at the bookstore was looking for because it's required reading for the local high school. 📚

Like Nazi camps, labor camps in North Korea use confinement, hunger and fear to create a kind of Skinner box: a closed, closely regulated chamber in which guards assert absolute control over prisoners. Yet while Auschwitz existed for only 3 years, Camp 14 is a 50 year old Skinner box, an ongoing longitudinal experiment in repression and mind control in which guards breed prisoners whom they control, isolate and pit against each other from birth.

Most North Koreans are sent to camps without any judicial process, and many die there without learning the charges against them. They are taken from their homes, usually at night, by the Bowibu, the National Security Agency. Guilt by association is legal. A wrongdoer is often imprisoned with his parents and children. Kim II Sung laid down the law in 1972: Enemies of class, whoever they are, their seed must be eliminated through three generations.

About sixty percent of Shin‘s class was assigned to the coal mines, where accidental death from cave-ins, explosions, and gas poisonings was common. Many miners developed black lung disease after ten to fifteen years of working underground. Most miners died in their forties, if not before. As Shin understood it, an assignment in the mines was a death sentence.

9. Prisoners must genuinely repent of their errors. Anyone who does not acknowledge his sins and instead denies them or carries a deviant opinion of them will be shot immediately.

In a media culture that feeds on celebrity, no movie star, no pop idol, no Nobel Prize winner stepped forward to demand that outsiders invest emotionally in a distant issue that lacks good video. “Tibetans have the Dalai Lama and Richard Gere, Burmese have Aung San Suu Kyi, Darfurians have Mia Farrow and George Clooney,” Suzanne Scholte, a long-time activist who brought camp survivors to Washington, told me. North Koreans have no one like that.

I escaped physically. I haven't escaped psychologically.

I am evolving from being an animal. But it is going very, very slowly. Sometime I try to cry and laugh like other people, just to see if it feels like anything. Yet tears don't come. Laughter doesn't come.

High School students in America debate why President Roosevelt didn't bomb the rail lines to Hitler's camps. Their children may ask, a generation from now, why the West stared at far clearer satellite images of Kim Jong Il's camps, and did nothing.

💞
Find me on ig: ssloffee 🌞

People get hung up on the facts or the lack of historical knowledge Shin has. But the fact of the matter is, Shin's journey and experience escaping the NK labor camps is nothing short of horrifying and inspiring.

Didn't grip me like other books on North Korea. I kept in mind that it's not that accurate.

My first day of the library book sale haul. Season 1 and 3 of What's New Scooby Doo, Season 2 of Get Smart, Hawaiian Legends of Ghosts and Ghost Gods, Colorado Kid - Stephen King, Mama's Bank Account - Kathryn Forbes, Escape From Camp 14 - Blaine Harden, Life After Death - Damien Echols, dirtcandy a cookbook - Amanda Cohen and Ryan Dunlavey. It was all $19. I'll get more next weekend for sure and maybe tomorrow. #librarybooksales

3 out of 5 because some parts are inaccurate

Ok, i am currently halfway reading this.

Now I don't know whether I should continue reading this "non-fiction" book ?

Was looking for this book almost a year at local bookstores but no luck.

But then there is a leprechaun with this book in her pot, willing to sell me at a bargain price of 10.

I iz happy. I iz content. And I shall start reading this now.

Goodnight people!

Wow, intense and so good. It was all the more riveting when I realized that Shin and I are the same age...I just...I can't even imagine how it's possible to get through life born into a NK concentration camp, where you barely even know about Kim Jong-il and Jong-un, much less escape and try to adjust to the rest of the world. This world, people. This world.

This is only 5.5 hours and available on Hoopla. I need to be with other humans now though.

#audiopuzzling in stark contrast to a book on escaping concentration camps in North Korea. 😯 (But this book is really good!)

My North Korea collection

Giving this one another go

Not getting as hooked in this one like Hyeonseo Lee and Yeonmi Parks books.
Not giving up though

Heading out for the night but listened to this audiobook on the way!! #24in48

Heading out for the night but listened to this audiobook on the way!! #24in48

amazing!amazing and amazing! فرار از اردوگاه ١٤

This was an incredibly interesting story about a man who was born, raised and later escaped from a North Korean labor camp. It wasn't just about his physical journey but also his mental and psychological journey in the camp and adjusting to life outside of it. A must read!