Sheena Dong Hyeka was born and lived in a labor camp until the age of 23. From which he only miraculously managed to escape. Motivation to run? Not the desire to gain freedom, as we might think. He just wanted to try «normal food».
The story of Shin Don Hek, told by American journalist Blaine Harden, evokes parallels with the diary of Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who died in a Nazi concentration camp. Only in Shin’s case, the opposite is true: he was born in a North Korean labor camp and did not gain freedom until 23 years later. Shin managed to escape, although as a small boy he witnessed how his mother and brother were executed for trying to escape. Shin himself denounced them to the camp authorities. He felt no remorse. He just did as he was taught. The camp morality that Shin describes has nothing to do with the categories of good and evil that we are familiar with. The prisoners have no relatives and friends — only rivals in the fight for food. Shin himself, according to him, decided to run away not at all out of a desire for freedom, but simply because he dreamed of trying normal food. Even today, he hasn’t completely rid himself of his camp habits and still sleeps on the bare floor. The story of Shin gives an example not so much of a person’s struggle with an overwhelming system, but of a struggle with the remnants of this system within himself. The very confessions of Shin say that he managed to achieve a lot along the way.
Eksmo, 320 p.