In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom

by Yeonmi Park

I was thirteen years old and weighed only sixty pounds.

I understand that sometimes the only way we can survive our own memories is to shape them into a story that makes sense out of events that seem inexplicable.

This is my story of the choices I made in order to live.

In North Korea, it’s not enough for the government to control where you go, what you learn, where you work, and what you say. They need to control you through your emotions, making you a slave to the state by destroying your individuality, and your ability to react to situations based on your own experience of the world.

Sometimes during recess from school we lined up to take turns beating or stabbing dummies dressed up like American soldiers. I was so scared that the Yankee devils would attack us again and torture me to death in the most evil way.

We could never just say “American”—that would be too respectful. It had to be “American bastard,” “Yankee devil,” or “big-nosed Yankee.” If you didn’t say it, you would be criticized for being too soft on our enemies.

Some people have even been executed by firing squad—just to set an example for the rest of us.

It was normal to see bodies in the trash heaps, bodies floating in the river, normal to just walk by and do nothing when a stranger cried for help.

There were so many desperate people on the streets crying for help that you had to shut off your heart or the pain would be too much. After a while you can’t care anymore. And that is what hell is like.

I had lost my family. I wasn’t loved, I wasn’t free, and I wasn’t safe. I was alive, but everything that made life worth living was gone.

When my mother and I saw my father walk in the door, we ran into his arms. I could hardly believe I had both my parents with me again. And it was the first time in many years that my father had been around to celebrate my birthday.

For some bizarre reason, they tried to prove that I had lied about my father’s death, and they produced a doctor to say he had died of cancer in a hospital in North Korea, not in China.