First the prisoner: While he was incarcerated he contracted a lung disease after 3 months' work. He lost 65 pounds. He noticed that extremely sick people were sent home to recuperate, so that the statistics showing prison deaths would not expose Kim's intentions. So he deliberately drank some dirty water, developed chronic diarrhea and was given a release. Sent home, his lungs recovered. But instead of going back to prison he escaped to China.

The prison: His recollection of the horrors he saw there, point by point,

• 7,000 prisoners mining limestone and making cement
• Housed in a factory built by the Japanese during their occupation of Chosun, a difficult time for Koreans, but still not as wretched as their current situation
• Nearly one mile square
• All men
• Most sentenced to 5 - 20 years
• Most did not expect to live long enough to finish their sentence
• 10-15 hours work per day
• hard labor
• dangerous conditions
• chest ailments/lung disease common
• nightly group meetings of up to 500 men for self-criticism and lectures about the Kims
• infractions punishable by reduced rations, extended sentences, punishment cells
• eight public executions in eight months
• executions came from 1)trying to escape 2) failed attempt to escape 3)crimes during "sick leave" 4) committing capital ofenses elsewhere and brought here for execution
• 2 ounces food per meal. mixed corn and wheat. cabbage-leaf soup.
• most prisoners around 100 pounds
• no bathing, changing of clothes; face-wash possible 3 times a month
• clothes hardened as dirt and sweat combined; skin abrasions-infections resulted
• high death rates. in this prisoner's unit, over one third died in eight months

Not all prisoners in this camp are believers. Some are. Not all have to stay very long. Some do. Aren't they worth our attention tonight?