Harden Blaine's story of escape from a death camp. Lieutenant from Sobibor. Escape from the death camp. Preface. Educational moment

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BLAINE HARDEN

FROM THE DEATH CAMP

North Korean citizens remaining in the camps

There are no “human rights problems” in our country, because everyone in it lives in dignity and happy life.

PREFACE. Educational moment............XVII

INTRODUCTION He had never heard the word "love" .....1

CHAPTER 1. He ate his mother's lunch...................21

CHAPTER 2. His school years...................................35

CHAPTER 3. The cream of society...................................45

CHAPTER 4. Mother tries to escape.................................63

CHAPTER 5. Mother tries to escape, version 2 .................. 69

CHAPTER 6. You need to talk to this bastard differently.................................................... .........74

CHAPTER 7. The sun even looks into rat holes.................................................. ...............82

CHAPTER 8. He couldn’t look his mother in the eyes.....87

CHAPTER 9. Reactionary bastard....................................91

CHAPTER 10. A real worker.................................... 102

CHAPTER 11. Paradise on a pig farm.................................... 112

CHAPTER 12. Sewing machines and denunciations.................................. 121

CHAPTER 13. Shin decides not to knock anymore........... 129

CHAPTER 14. Shin prepares to run.................................... 140

CHAPTER 15. Fence.................................................... 147

CHAPTER 16. Steal to survive.................................... 153

CHAPTER 17. The path to the north.................................... 167

CHAPTER 18. Border.................................................... 181

CHAPTER 19. China.................................................... 189

CHAPTER 20. Shelter.................................................... 199

CHAPTER 21. Credit cards....................................211

CHAPTER 22. South Koreans none of this is very interesting...................................... .222

CHAPTER 23. USA................................................... 233

EPILOGUE. You can’t run away from the past......................... 249

AFTERWORD................................................... 256

APPLICATION. Ten rules of camp 14................262

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS................................................... 268

NOTES................................................... 272

SPECIALLY FOR THE SITE BOOKS4IPHONE.RU

TEACHING MOMENT

The first memory of his life was an execution. His mother took him to a wheat field near the Taedong River, where guards had already gathered several thousand prisoners. Excited by so many people, the boy crawled under the feet of the adults to the very first row and saw how the guards were tying a man to a wooden post.

Shin In Geun was only four years old, and he, of course, still could not understand the meaning of the speech made before the execution. But, having attended dozens of other executions in the following years, he would again hear the commander of the firing squad tell the crowd that the wise and just Government of North Korea had given the person sentenced to death the opportunity to “atone for his guilt” through hard work, but he had rejected this generous proposal and refused to take the path of correction. To prevent the prisoner from shouting his last curses at the state that was about to take his life, the guards stuffed a handful of river pebbles into his mouth and then covered his head with a bag.

That very first time, Shin watched with all his eyes as three guards took the condemned man at gunpoint. Each of them fired three times. The roar of shots frightened the boy so much that he recoiled and fell backwards to the ground, but hastily rose to his feet and managed to see how the guards untied the limp, blood-stained body from the post, wrapped it in a blanket and threw it onto a cart.

In Camp 14, a special prison for political enemies of socialist Korea, prisoners were allowed to gather in groups of more than two only during executions. Everyone without exception had to come to them. Exemplary executions (and the fear they instilled in people) were used in the camp as an educational moment.

Shin's teachers (and educators) in the camp were the guards. They chose his mother and father. They taught him to constantly remember that anyone who violates camp rules deserves death. On the hillside next to his school was inscribed the motto: ALL LIFE BY RULES AND REGULATIONS. The boy learned well the ten rules of conduct in the camp, the “Ten Commandments,” as he later called them, and still remembers them by heart. The first rule was: “those detained while attempting to escape are shot immediately.”

Ten years after that execution, the guards again gathered on the field huge crowd, only next to the wooden pole they also built a gallows.

This time he arrived there in the back seat of a car driven by one of the security guards. Shin's hands were handcuffed and his eyes were covered with a rag. His father was sitting next to him. Also handcuffed and also blindfolded.

They had just been released from the underground prison inside Camp 14, where they had spent eight months. Before their release, they were given a condition: to sign a non-disclosure agreement about everything that happened to them underground.

In this prison within a prison, Shin and his father were tortured to extract a confession. The guards wanted to know about the failed escape attempt made by Shin's mother and his only brother. The soldiers undressed Shin, hung him over the fire and slowly lowered him. He lost consciousness as his flesh began to fry.

However, he did not admit to anything. He simply had nothing to admit. He did not plan to run away with his mother and brother. He sincerely believed in what he was taught from birth in the camp: firstly, it is impossible to escape, and secondly, having heard any talk about escaping, it is necessary to report them to the guards. Shin never had fantasies about life outside the camp, even in his dreams.

The guards at the camp school never taught Shin what every North Korean schoolchild knows by heart: that American “imperialist degenerates” are planning to attack, ruin and humiliate his socialist homeland, that the “puppet regime” South Korea obediently serves its American overlord that North Korea is great country, the courage and wisdom of whose leaders are envied by the whole world... He simply did not even realize the fact of the existence of South Korea, China or the States.

North Korean citizens remaining in the camps

There are no “human rights problems” in our country because everyone in it lives a decent and happy life.

Preface

Educational moment

The first memory of his life was an execution. His mother took him to a wheat field near the Taedong River, where guards had already gathered several thousand prisoners. Excited by so many people, the boy crawled under the feet of the adults to the very first row and saw how the guards were tying a man to a wooden post.

Shin In Geun was only four years old, and he, of course, still could not understand the meaning of the speech made before the execution. But, having attended dozens of other executions in the following years, he would again hear the commander of the firing squad tell the crowd that the wise and just Government of North Korea had given the person sentenced to death the opportunity to “atone for his guilt” through hard work, but he had rejected this generous proposal and refused to take the path of correction. To prevent the prisoner from shouting his last curses at the state that was about to take his life, the guards stuffed a handful of river pebbles into his mouth and then covered his head with a bag.

That very first time, Shin watched with all his eyes as three guards took the condemned man at gunpoint. Each of them fired three times. The roar of shots frightened the boy so much that he recoiled and fell backwards to the ground, but hastily rose to his feet and managed to see how the guards untied the limp, blood-stained body from the post, wrapped it in a blanket and threw it onto a cart.

In Camp 14, a special prison for political enemies of socialist Korea, prisoners were allowed to gather in groups of more than two only during executions. Everyone without exception had to come to them. Exemplary executions (and the fear they instilled in people) were used in the camp as an educational moment.

Shin's teachers (and educators) in the camp were the guards. They chose his mother and father. They taught him to constantly remember that anyone who violates camp rules deserves death. On the hillside next to his school was inscribed the motto: ALL LIFE BY RULES AND REGULATIONS. The boy learned well the ten rules of conduct in the camp, the “Ten Commandments,” as he later called them, and still remembers them by heart. The first rule stated: “those detained while attempting to escape are shot immediately.”

Ten years after that execution, the guards again gathered a huge crowd on the field, only they also built a gallows next to the wooden post.

This time he arrived there in the back seat of a car driven by one of the security guards. Shin's hands were handcuffed and his eyes were covered with a rag. His father was sitting next to him. Also handcuffed and also blindfolded.

They had just been released from the underground prison inside Camp 14, where they had spent eight months. Before their release, they were given a condition: to sign a non-disclosure agreement about everything that happened to them underground.

In this prison within a prison, Shin and his father were tortured to extract a confession. The guards wanted to know about the failed escape attempt made by Shin's mother and his only brother. The soldiers undressed Shin, hung him over the fire and slowly lowered him. He lost consciousness as his flesh began to fry.

However, he did not admit to anything. He simply had nothing to admit. He did not plan to run away with his mother and brother. He sincerely believed in what he was taught from birth in the camp: firstly, it is impossible to escape, and secondly, having heard any talk about escaping, it is necessary to report them to the guards.

There are no “human rights problems” in our country because everyone in it lives a decent and happy life.

“Harden’s book is not only a fascinating story told with ruthless directness, but also a treasure trove of previously unknown information about a mysterious, black hole-like country.”

– Bill Keller, The New York Times

"Blaine Harden's Outstanding Book" Escape from death camps» tells us much more about the dictatorial regime reigning in one of the most terrible corners of our world than can be learned from thousands of textbooks... "Escape from the Death Camp" the story of Shin's epiphany, his escape and attempts to start new life, it's fascinating, amazing book, which should be made compulsory for study in schools and colleges. This harrowing eyewitness account of systematically monstrous atrocities is similar to The Diary of Anne Frank or Dith Pran's account of escaping Polpot's genocide in Cambodia in that it is impossible to read without fear that your heart will stop from horror... Harden on Every page of the book shines with his writing skills.”

– The Seattle Times

“Blaine Harden’s book has no analogues. "Escape from the Death Camp"“This is a fascinating description of nightmarish anti-humanism, an unbearable tragedy, even more terrible because all this horror continues to happen right at this moment, with no end in sight.”

– Terry Hong, Christian Science Monitor

"If you have a heart, then "Escape from the Death Camp" Blaine Harden will change you once and for all... Harden introduces us to Sheen, showing him not as some hero, but a simple person, trying to understand everything that was done to him, and everything that he had to go to in order to survive. As a result, "Escape from the Death Camp" turns into an indictment of the inhuman regime and a monument to those who tried with all their might not to lose human form in the face of evil."

“An extraordinary story, a heart-searing tale of the awakening of personality in a prisoner in North Korea’s toughest prison.”

– The Wall Street Journal

“As American policymakers wonder what changes the recent death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il might bring, people who read this fascinating book will be able to better understand the brutality of the remaining regime in this strange state. Without being distracted from main topic books, Harden skillfully weaves information about history, politics and social order North Korea, providing a rich historical backdrop to Shin's misadventures."

– Associated Press

“In terms of dynamics, accompanied by miraculous luck and manifestations of unparalleled courage, the story of Shin’s escape from the camp is not inferior to classic film"The Great Escape". If we talk about it as an episode from life ordinary person, then she tears her heart to shreds. If everything he had to endure, if the fact that he saw his family only as rivals in the battle for food, had been shown in some way feature film, you would think that the screenwriter was too imaginative. But perhaps the most important thing in this book is that it raises one question that people try to remain silent about, the question that sooner or later the West will have to answer for its inaction.”

– The Daily Beast

“A stunning biographical book... If you really want to understand what is happening inside a rogue state, you simply must read it. It's a heartbreaking story of bravery and desperate struggle for survival, dark at times but ultimately life-affirming."

– CNN

IN " Escape from the death camp"Harden chronicles Shin's astonishing odyssey, from his earliest childhood memories - a public execution he witnessed at age four - to his work with South Korean and American human rights organizations... By retelling the nearly impossible story of Shin's liberation, Harden sheds light on the moral ills of humanity. existing 12 times longer than the fascist ones concentration camps. The reader will never be able to forget Shin’s boyish and wise smile beyond his years - new symbol freedom defeating totalitarianism."

– Will Lislo, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Harden with great skill interweaves assessments of the current state of the entire North Korean society with the personal life story of the book’s hero. He shows us with all clarity and clarity internal mechanics this totalitarian state, its international politics and the consequences of its humanitarian disasters... This small book makes a strong impression. The author operates only with facts and refuses to exploit the reader’s emotions, but these facts are enough to make our hearts ache, so that we start looking additional information and asking how we might accelerate the arrival of greater change.”

– Damien Kirby, The Oregonian

“A story that is fundamentally different from all others... Especially from other books about North Korea, including the one written by me. "Escape from the Death Camp" shows us the unprecedented cruelty on which the regime of Kim Jong Il rested. Veteran foreign journalist Blaine Harden of The Washington Post is simply masterful in his storytelling... An honest book, it shows on every page.”

“Harden tells a story that will take your breath away. The reader follows as Shin learns of the existence outside world, normal human relationships, devoid of evil and hatred, how he finds hope... and how painfully he goes to a new life. A book every adult should read."

– Library Journal

“When we meet the main character, doomed to backbreaking forced labor, mortal enmity with his own kind and life in a world where there is not a drop of human warmth, it seems to us that we are reading a dystopian thriller. But this is not fantasy - this is real biography Dong Hyuk's Shin."

–Publishers Weekly

“A bone-chilling, stunning story of escaping from a country no one knows anything about.”

– Kirkus Reviews

"Talking about amazing life Sheena, Harden opens our eyes to a North Korea that exists in reality, not in loud newspaper headlines, and celebrates the desire of a person to remain a person."

“The Washington Post's Blaine Harden is a seasoned reporter who has traveled to hotspots such as Congo, Serbia and Ethiopia. And all these countries, he makes clear, can be considered quite successful compared to North Korea... For this dark, terrifying, but ultimately hopeful book about a man with a crippled soul, who survived only thanks to a lucky coincidence and did not find happiness even in freedom, Harden deserves not just admiration, but much, much more.” .

– Literary Review

“Sheen’s life story, which at times is downright painful to read, tells the story of his physical and psychological escape from a closed prison society where there is no place human feelings, and a journey into the joys and challenges of living in a free world where a person can feel like a human being.”

“This year there will be a lot of good books. But this book is absolutely unique... Shin Dong Hyuk - the only person, born in a North Korean political prison camp, who managed to escape and leave the country. He described his adventures in great detail in conversations with veteran foreign journalist Blaine Harden, who later wrote this outstanding book... I cannot say that there are answers to the questions posed in the book. But one question is very important. And it goes like this: “Now American schoolchildren are arguing about why President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not bomb railways leading to Hitler's death camps. But literally a generation later, their children may ask why Western countries did not act, looking at extremely clear and understandable satellite images of Kim Jong Il’s camps.” This book is hard to read. But it’s necessary.”

– Don Graham, Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Washington Post

“An unforgettable adventure, the coming-of-age story of a man who endured the most terrible childhood imaginable.”

– Slate

Shin's diagram of Camp 14

On the big map:

Taedong River – Taedong River

Camp fence

Guard post – Security posts

1. The house where Shin Dong-hyuk lived

2. The field where executions were carried out

3. Shin School

4. The place where Shin's class was attacked by the guards' children

5. The dam where Shin worked and caught the bodies of drowned people

6. The pig farm where Shin worked

7. The garment factory where Shin learned about the existence of the outside world

8. The section of the fence where Shin escaped from the camp

On a small map:

China – China

Russia – Russia

Camp 14 – Camp 14

Korea Bay - Korean Bay

Pyongyang – Pyongyang

Sea of ​​Japan – Sea of ​​Japan

Yellow Sea – Yellow Sea

South Korea - South Korea

Shin's escape route from Camp 14 to China

Approximate journey length: 560 kilometers

On the big map:

China – China

Yalu River – Yalu River

North Korea - North Korea

Camp 14 – Camp 14

Taedong River – Taedong River

Bukchang - Bukchang

Maengsan

Hamhung - Hamhung

Korea Bay - Korean Bay

Pyongyang – Pyongyang

Yellow Sea – Yellow Sea

South Korea - South Korea

Seoul - Seoul

Helong – Helong

Russia – Russia

Tumen River – Tumangan River

Musan - Musan

Chongjin – Chongjin

Gilju – Gilju

Sea of ​​Japan – Sea of ​​Japan

On the small map:

Map name – KOREAN REGION

Otherwise, everything is the same as in any geographical atlas.

Tomorrow, May 3, the film “Sobibor” will be released in Russian cinemas, becoming the debut director's work Konstantin Khabensky. The film tells the story of a prisoner riot in the city of the same name. Nazi concentration camp, located on the territory of occupied Poland, and about the feat of the Soviet officer Alexander Pechersky, who raised an uprising there.

On October 14, 1943, SS Untersturmführer Ernst Berg entered the tailor's workshop of the Sobibor concentration camp. It wasn’t that Berg was eager to communicate with the prisoners, but they had to sew a uniform for him, and the SS man was going to try it on. The uniform was ready, it was good, and this was the last impression in Berg’s life. As soon as he took off his belt and holster to change clothes, an ax fell on his head. Thus began a remarkably successful uprising in a Nazi extermination camp.

Alexander Pechersky did not intend to become a hero, and it cannot be said that he spent his whole life pursuing his feat. He was born in Kremenchug, graduated from school, then worked as an employee and led an amateur music group. In general, his pre-war biography looked cozy and unremarkable. Everything changed in 1941.

Pechersky was drafted into the army on June 22, in September he was promoted to quartermaster of the second rank (lieutenant rank) and sent to a staff position in an artillery regiment east of Smolensk. At that time it was a calm section of the front. However, just a few weeks later, one of the major battles World War II - the battle for Moscow.

This battle began with a grandiose catastrophe - double encirclement Soviet troops near Vyazma and Bryansk. Pechersky got into it along with others. His small detachment wandered through the forests until food and ammunition ran out. A dozen soldiers with wounded in their arms had no chance of salvation. In the end, the remnants of the broken unit ran into an ambush and laid down their arms.

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Sobibor, Poland, 1943. Photo © Wikimedia Commons

This camp, located in Eastern Poland, enjoyed a gloomy reputation even against the general public. It was founded in 1942 to exterminate Jews, and in less than a year and a half, a quarter of a million people went to the next world. Upon arrival, when the prisoners were being sorted, Pechersky stated that he was supposedly a carpenter. It was a reasonable idea: people who did not have any useful skills were quickly executed. Gas chambers, which became a symbol of Nazi genocide, were not actually present in all concentration camps, but Sobibor was one of them. People were herded into a building called a bathhouse. This building could accommodate 800 people at a time. For a quarter of an hour, people were suffocated with gas, after which all that was left was to remove the corpses.

Sobibor consisted of three sectors. In one, sorting took place, confiscating things from those who had something to take. After this, they were sent to another section of the concentration camp, where mass executions took place. Finally, in the third section of the camp there were workshops where prisoners lived in poor conditions, but at least they were not immediately destroyed.

The Nazis acted quickly, so there were rarely many people in the camp at one time. Attempts to escape were suppressed quickly and brutally. Along with those who tried to escape, they shot those who might have known about the escape, but did not report. Karl Frenzel, the commander of the sector where Pechersky was sitting, took part in the executions personally and killed over forty people with his own hands. Conditions of detention were unbearable even for working prisoners: meager food, brutal punishments for the slightest offense, murder.

Pechersky understood perfectly well that in case of an unsuccessful escape he would go to gas chamber himself, and if he escapes alone, the Nazis will kill his cellmates. On December 2, one of the prisoners told Pechersky that he wanted to escape with a small group of comrades. The lieutenant dissuaded his comrade in misfortune from rash actions.

Pechersky was not going to sit idly by. He decided to organize a mass riot and the escape of everyone who was able to escape, especially since from conversations with other prisoners Pechersky concluded that many would like to take the risk. There was no question about the leader of the uprising: the Red Army lieutenant had not only military experience, but also innate leadership qualities.

Riot in the camp

Everyone knew that the administration had informants among the camp inmates. Moreover, even without traitors, if many people knew about the escape, it would be very easy to screw up by accident. Therefore, only a few people knew about the planned uprising, whom Pechersky certainly trusted. From old prisoners who had been in Sobibor for many months, Pechersky found out something about the security regime.

At first they thought of digging a tunnel. But it was too difficult and risky, and the prisoners would escape through the tunnel too slowly. Therefore, the prisoners decided on a more radical method - to attack the guards and destroy the guards. To do this, they could use workshop tools; in addition, Pechersky ordered the production of several dozen knives and stilettos. In addition, scissors for cutting barbed wire were prepared.

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Photo ©

Alexander Pechersky. Photo © Alexander Pechersky. Photo ©

Pechersky’s small detachment wandered through the forests for several days. However, they were lucky: Sobibor was still not in the depths of the Reich. In the Belarusian forests of the 43rd, invisible from the outside, but intense life was going on. Soon the rebels were picked up by the partisans. Pechersky still considered himself a Soviet soldier and, naturally, joined them. After the liberation of Belarus by the Red Army, Pechersky ended up in the forming assault battalion and told his story to the battalion commander.