Shin In Geun

Shin In Geun was born and raised in Camp 14, a North Korean prison camp. Until his escape at age twenty-three, he knew nothing other than the life he was forced to lead in the oppressive, brutal, and inhumane political prison camp. The first supreme leader of North Korea, Kim Il Sung, created the prison camps believing that wrongdoers passed their “criminal mind” on their descendants. It was Shin’s bad luck was the government’s contention that a remote relative who had committed a crime passed evil down to Shin and his family.

Shin knew nothing of the outside world. In fact, he didn’t even know there was a South Korea. Like all children, Shin was required to attend the prison camp school where nameless teachers fed them propaganda and reinforced the idea that they were bearing the sins of the father and that...