Defectors, Refugees, and Prisoners Stories
- An Insider's Look at the North Korean RegimeHearing before House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Thae Yong-ho, high-ranking diplomatic officer, statement on why he defected while posted in London, and on current situation for Kim Jong Un vs. populace.. Nov. 1, 2017
- Columbia University Student's StoryIn Cornell Daily Sun, March 19, 2017. Austin Hyeong speaks at Cornell about his escape from North Korea when he was 12.
The Girl with Seven Names: a North Korean Defector's Story by
(NYT Bestseller) Hyeonseo Lee grew up in North Korea but escaped to China in 1997. In 2008 she came to Seoul, South Korea, where she struggled to adjust to life in the bustling city. Recently graduated from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, she has become a regular speaker on the international stage fostering human rights and awareness of the plight of North Koreans. She is an advocate for fellow refugees, even helping close relatives leave North Korea. Her TED talk has been viewed nearly 4m times. She is married to her American husband Brian Gleason and currently lives in South Korea.
Call Number: DS934.6.L44 A3 2015Publication Date: 2015 (London : William Collins,)
The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by
Kang Chol-hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea. He and his family were taken to Yodok when he was nine years old, when his grandfather was accused of treason. This record of one man's suffering gives eyewitness proof to an ongoing sorrowful chapter of modern history.
Call Number: HV 9815.6 K3613 2005Publication Date: 2005 (New York: Basic Books)
Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee - A Look Inside North Korea by
A high-ranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as former poet laureate to Kim Jong-il and his subsequent escape to freedom. As North Korea's State Poet Laureate, Jang Jin-sung led a charmed life. His privileged existence was about to be shattered: when a strictly forbidden magazine he lent to a friend goes missing, Jang Jin-sung must flee for his life. Never before has a member of the elite described the inner workings of this totalitarian state and its propaganda machine. An astonishing exposé, Jang Jin-sung was "intimately familiar with the regime's mythmaking, and why his memoir is about the dismantling of facades."
Call Number: DS 935.7773 J36 A3Publication Date: 2014 (New York: 37 Ink, Atria)
Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West by
A New York Times bestseller, this is the shocking story of Shin Dong-hyuk, one of the few people born and raised in a North Korean political prison to have escaped and survived. In Escape from Camp 14. Shin knew nothing of civilized existence. He saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards beat him and raised him to be a snitch. He witnessed the execution of his mother and brother after betraying them to a guard. At the age of 23 he escaped the camp thru an electric fence. [Note: Author Blaine Harden discovered that certain accounts he was told by Shin about his life were different than what Shin was telling his friends. Harden said some of the times and places Shin described were wrong, and he may have actually been at a different prison camp.]
Call Number: HV 9815.6 H37 2012. (Also available as an audiobook on Overdrive; click on title).Publication Date: 2012 (New York: Viking)
Eyes of the Tailless Animals: Prison Memoirs of a North Korean Woman by
Sun Ok Yi was head of "Onsung County officer's material distribution center" when she was arrested in 1986, a few months after she refused to give the chief of the Public Security Bureau fabric for two suits rather than for the one he was allowed to have. The arrest reason was "violating the commercial policies of the Party and taking bribes." She was taken to Chongjin Concentration Camp where she was tortured, ate clay for food, and endured 6 years of horror. She was released in 1992 and escaped to South Korea in 1995.
Call Number: HV 9815.6 Y5 1999Publication Date: 1999 (Bartlesville, OK: Living Sacrifice Book Co.)
Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor by
Put into an orphanage under a false name by his mother after his father was killed as a spy, Kim Yong eventually rose to lieutenant colonel in the North Korean army, He enjoyed luxury and freedom, while also encountering corruption at all levels.. When his false identity was discovered, he was condemned to camp No.14, later to Camp 18. He became acquainted with political prisoners, subhuman camp guards, and a famine that killed millions. After years of planning and with the help of old friends, Kim escaped and came to the United States...
Call Number: HV 9815.6 K56 2009Publication Date: 2009 (New York: Columbia University Press)
Out of North Korea: a Korean boy tells his rescue story in pictures by
(Illustrated by Gil Su) This book describes the starvation and violence Gil Su ( at c.14 yrs. old) experienced himself and witnessed happening to others. He escaped North Korea with some of his family, returned to try to get his aunt out of prison camp, was arrested, but again escaped, making his way eventually to the U.S.
Included at the end of the book is a list of known North Korean refugees and humanitarian workers seized by the Chinese and "repatriated" to the DPRK.
Call Number: HN 730.6 A8 O89 2011Publication Date: 2011 (Camp Hill, PA: History Maker Pub.)
This Is Paradise! My North Korean Childhood by
First published in French in 2004 ("Ici, C'est Le Paradis!" ) This a shocking and moving portrayal of scenes of every day life in North Korea. Hyok Kang was 13 when he escaped from North Korea, after experiencing cruelty, starvation -- even death of one of his classmates -- and public executions. The book describes his life as a student, and includes his black and white illustrations of what he experienced and witnessed.
Call Number: HV 640.5 K67 K3613 2005Publication Date: 2007 (Great Britain: Little, Brown)
In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom by
True story of Yeonmi Park who describes life under the brutally repressive regime which starved and terrorized citizens. She tells of her family's decision to escape that culminated in an extraordinary night-time trek across the Gobi Desert. She was 13 at the time.
Call Number: DS935.7773 P37 2016Publication Date: 2016 ([London] : Penguin Books)
- Daily Life of a North KoreanYeonmi Park, author of "In Order to Live, describes her daily life as a school child in North Korea and the work they had to do outside of school.
Interviews with North Korean Defectors: from Kim Shin-jo to Thae Yong-ho by
34 interviews with highly prominent North Korean defectors residing in South Korea, ranging from religious figures, to artists, politicians, North Korea experts, and even divers and subway train operators. The 33 interviews herein are listed chronologically according to the interviewees' date of arrival to South Korea and span almost 70 years. The book also includes six special columns addressing key issues pertaining to North Korean defectors and their lives in South Korea. The English translation also contains an exclusive 34th interview with Lim Il, the source text author which was carried out towards the end of the project in October 2020.
Publication Date: 2022 (Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge)
Prison Camps
The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK). scroll down for information about prison camps and an interactive 3-D model of 3 three camps (Exploring North Korea's Prison Camps).
The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps by
"Prisoners' Testimonies and Satellite Photographs." This report describes a number of penal institutions administered by two different North Korean police agencies: the In-min-bo-an-seong (People’s Safety Agency) and the more political Kuk-ga-bo-wi-bu (National Security Agency). The report outlines two distinct systems of repression: first, forced-labor colonies, camps, and prisons where scores of thousands of prisoners – some political, some convicted felons – are worked, many to their deaths, in mining, logging, farming, and industrial enterprises, often in remote valleys located in the mountainous areas of North Korea; and second, a system of smaller, shorter-term detention facilities along the North Korea-China border used to brutally punish North Koreans who flee to China but are forcibly "repatriated." [note: the PDF's have b&w, not color, satellite photos.)
Call Number: HV 9815.6 H39 2003 + (Also online PDF)Publication Date: 2003 (Wash. D.C.: U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea)
The Hidden Gulag (2nd. ed.): The Lives and Voices of Those Who Are "Sent to the Mountains" by
"Exposing North Korea's Vast System of Lawless Imprisonment" Updated information on the Kwan-li-so (political penal labor colonies), Kyo-hwa-so (long-term prison-labor facilities) and detention facilities & punishments for forcibly repatriated North Koreans. Includes information on violence against women in the prison camps.
Call Number: (online PDF)Publication Date: 2012 (Wash., D.C.: Committee for Human Rights in North Korea)
- “Hidden Gulag” A Discussion with David HawkOn November 19, 2020, HRNK Executive Director Greg Scarlatoiu moderated a conversation with David Hawk on the "Hidden Gulag." This is was the first of our new “Virtual HRNK Author Speaking Series.”
(Youtube, i hr. 19 ,om) - OneFreeKorea -- CampsNorth Korea's Largest Concentration Camps, on Google Earth, satellite photos -- camps 14 (Kaechon), 15 (Yodok), 16 (Hwasong), 18 (Kaechon), 22 (Hoeryong), 25 (Chongjin)
- NBC interview with prison guard2003 Dateline interview with Ahn Myong Chol, who worked at four different camps including "National Security Defense Division No. 22 Hoeryong Prison." He was there from 1987 to 1994, working part of the time as a driver delivering food to guard posts. He describes some of the cruelty and atrocities he witnessed, including rape, beatings, torture, drownings, and starvation.
- Political Prison Camp, As Drawn by a Defector
Drawings by a defector of the horrors experienced and witnessed in a prison camp - Kyo-hwa-So at Songho-Ri2021 HRNK report on long-term prison-labor facility Kyo-hwa-so, including background and organization, current status, and satellite photos.
Defectors - Subsequent Problems and Issues
The Social and Psychological Acculturation of North Korean Refugees by
Sociological study of North Korean refugees in South Korea since 2004. Quantitative and qualitative investigations, including case studies, of adaptation and adjustment issues.
Call Number: HV 640.5 K67 Y527 2014Publication Date: Seoul, Republic of Korea : Seoul National University Press, [2014]
North Korean Defectors in a New and Competitive Society by
Ongoing ideological or political conflicts in the modern world have led to appalling human rights violations against North Korean defectors who attempt to escape from their repressive country and seek freedom. [The book] articulates several hurdles that North Korean defectors encounter, from their long journey of escape to assimilation in their new homes. This book seeks to raise international awareness of human rights violations against North Koreans, and to emphasize the importance of helping them overcome the substantial cultural gaps between North Korea and their new homes.
Call Number: HV 640.5 K67 L438 2016Publication Date: 2016 (Lanham : Lexington Books)
North Korean Defectors in Diaspora: Identities, Mobilities, and Resettlements by
"This edited collection investigates the mobilities, resettlement practices, and identities of North Korean defectors who have relocated to the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, and South Korea"
Publication Date: 2022 ( Lanham, Maryland : Lexington Books,)
Human Rights
- HRNK: Committee for Human Rights in North Korea HRNK was established in 2001. New home page has downloadable documents on various topics, including prison camps, and links to HRNK's goals regarding Gulags, Hunger, Borders, Inform & Educate, Economic Principles, Media Access.
- North Korea Freedom Coalition The North Korea Freedom Coalition is a nonpartisan coalition founded in June, 2003. Their North Korea Human Rights Information page has links to sources on human rights in the DPRK, famine, food crisis, North Korean refugees, forced repatriation, and prison camps.
- Mapping the Fate of the Dead: Killings and Burials in North Korea Transitional Justice Working Group. 2019 report. and link to satellite maps.
- Pyongyang Republic: North Korea's Capital of Human Rights Denial (HRNK 2016) The power elite, privileges and life in Pyongyang, ministries and organizations and their connection to human rights denials.
- Denied from the Start: Human Rights at the Local Level in North Korea HRNK publication by Robert Collins about how social control is carried out in villages; the role of the military and schools.
- "Thank you Father Kim Il Sung:" Eyewitness Accounts of Severe Violations of Freedom of Thought, Conscience, and Religion in North KoreaPrepared by David Hawk. [Washington, D.C.] : U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, [2005]
White paper on Human Rights in North Korea
Organized by sections covering specific rights, with case studies, in areas of right to life, health, education, movement & residence, marriage and family, freedom of belief, assembly, right to property, rights of foreigners; information on prison camps. Includes tables and statistics.
Call Number: +JC 599 K7 W58 Online also 1996 - current.Publication Date: Annual: (Seoul: Research Institute for National Unification, 1996- to current)
Dying for Rights: Putting North Korea's Human Rights Abuses on the Record by
The author analyzes human rights violations regarding famine & hunger; discrimination & religious persecution; information control; forbidding the foreign; control of movement, prison camps, torture & execution; exporting rights violations. She also discusses the denials by the state, in the official news and broadcasting, and by foreign nationals.
Call Number: JC599.K7 F34 2019Publication Date: 2019 (New York : Columbia University Press)
The UN Universal Periodic Review and the DPRK: Monitoring of North Korea's Implementation of Its Recommendations by
U.N. Commission of Inquiry on North Korea, report on violations of human rights mandates covering several areas: women & children, persons with disabilities, detainees; human trafficking & repatriation; civil & political rights; economic & social rights including food and access to health care. Many testimonials and personal experiences.
Call Number: JC599.K7 C44513 2017Publication Date: 2017 ( Seoul : Database Center for North Korean Human Rights)
Arsenal of Terror:North Korea, State Sponsor of Terrorism by
Background and current analysis of North Korea's SSOT status
Call Number: + HV 6433 K7 S73 2015Publication Date: 2015 (Washington, DC : U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea)
Exodus to North Korea: Shadows from Japan's Cold War by
.." this book studies the "return" of over 90,000 people, most of them ethnic Koreans, from Japan to North Korea from 1959 onward. Presented to the world as a humanitarian venture and conducted under the supervision of the International Red Cross, the scheme was actually the result of political intrigues of Japan, North Korea, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Though most left willingly, persuaded by propaganda that a bright new life awaited them in North Korea, the author draws on recently declassified documents to reveal the covert pressures used to hasten the departure of this unwelcome ethnic minority. For most, their new home proved a place of poverty and hardship; for thousands, it was a place of persecution and death."
Call Number: JV 8757.5 M67 2007Publication Date: 2007 (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers)
Outsiders: Memories of Migration to and from North Korea by
.[This book] explores the hidden histories of the men and women who migrated from Japan to the world's most secretive state; reveals the driving forces that propelled thousands of ordinary people to risk it all in Kim Il-Sung's worker's paradise, only to escape back to Japan half a century later"
Publication Date: 2022 (New York : Berghahn)
Taken! North Korea's Criminal Abduction of Citizens of Other Countries by
"According to the report the North is holding residents of a number of European and Asian countries. There may be hundreds of abductees inside North Korea who are not known to be there. The regime undertakes to abduct its victims in absolute secrecy, and detains them indefinitely in closely monitored circumstances which do not permit them to come in contact with many people even inside North Korea." The abducted people are used in a number of ways, particularly to train North Korean spies.
Call Number: (ANX) KZ 4486 Y36 2011 + [all K call numbers are in Library Annex]Publication Date: 2011 Washington, DC : Committee for Human Rights in North Korea
North Korean Defectors in China - Forced Repatriation and Human Rights Violations by
Chapters, including charts, graphs and statistics, and brief case studies,covering China's policy on defectors and the current situation for defectors; motivations for defection, brokers and human trafficking; living conditions in China; human rights and forced repatriation; reality of human rights for defectors after repatriation; proposals for improvements.
Call Number: HV 640.5 K67 Y954166 2014Publication Date: 2014 (Seoul: Database Center for North Korean Human Rights)
