The official with the loudspeaker spoke again.

He announced that the bodies would remain on display for 3 days as a warning.

that anyone who showed sympathy for these criminals would be investigated, that this was the fate of all enemies of the state.

Then he dismissed the crowd.

People began to stand and file out slowly.

No one spoke.

What could anyone say? The families of the executed were not allowed to leave yet.

I saw guards holding them in place, making them sit there and look at the bodies, making them understand completely what had happened.

I wanted to stay.

I wanted to go to Hijin and the children.

I wanted to hold our mother, but a Bibu agent was walking through the crowd looking at faces, checking a list.

If I was recognized, if I was caught, everything would be for nothing.

So I turned and walked away with the crowd.

I kept my head down.

I did not look back.

I walked through the streets of Ryong Chon in a days.

People dispersed to their homes.

Some went to work.

Life did not stop for an execution.

I walked without knowing where I was going.

Eventually, I found myself back at the abandoned warehouse.

I went inside and sat down on the floor in the corner where I had been sleeping.

And then I broke.

I do not know how to describe what happened next.

It was like something inside me shattered into a million pieces.

I started to cry, but it was not normal crying.

It was a sound I had never made before.

Like an animal in pain, I could not control it.

I could not stop it.

I cried until I could not breathe.

Until my throat was raw, until my chest hurt.

I cried for my brother.

For the sound of the rifles, for the blood, for the way his body jerked when the bullets hit.

I cried for Hijin and the children who had watched their father die.

For our mother who had lost her son.

I cried for Mrs.

Park and Miss Choy and all the others who had died for nothing more than believing in Jesus.

I cried for the world that allowed this to happen.

For a government that could kill people for owning a book.

for a system so evil it made children watch their parents executed.

And I cried because I was alive and they were dead.

Because I was free and they were gone.

Because I would go on living and they would not.

When the crying finally stopped, I lay on the floor in the darkness.

I was empty, hollowed out.

I felt like I had died too, like my soul had been tied to that post with Sunung min and been shot through with bullets.

Night fell.

I did not move.

I just lay there staring at nothing.

I do not remember falling asleep.

But at some point, I must have because I woke up to gray morning light coming through the broken windows.

For a moment, I did not remember where I was or what had happened.

Then it all came crashing back.

My brother was dead.

I got up slowly.

My body achd.

My head dropped.

My eyes were swollen from crying.

I needed water, but I had none.

I needed food, but I had none.

I just stood there in that empty warehouse and tried to figure out what to do next.

I knew I could not stay in Riong Chon much longer.

Every day I stayed was another day I might be caught, but I could not leave yet either.

I had to know what would happen to the bodies, to the families.

Over the next three days, I stayed hidden but gathered information.

I learned that the bodies were left on the stage exactly as the official had said.

People walked past the stadium and could see them there rotting in the summer heat.

I learned that on the second day birds came crows.

They landed on the bodies and the guards did nothing to stop them.

I learned that Hijin and the children and our mother were still being held.

That they would be sent to Campin within a week.

I learned that the bodies would not be given to the families for burial.

They would be burned and the ashes scattered.

There will be no grave to visit, no place to mourn.

On the third night after the execution, I went back to the stadium.

It was past midnight.

There were guards there, but they were tired and not paying attention.

I climbed to the top of the risers and looked down at the stage.

The bodies were still there.

I could see Song Min’s body slump against the ropes.

His head was hanging forward.

His clothes were soaked with dried blood.

I sat there for a long time just looking at him, just saying goodbye.

I told him I was sorry I could not save him.

I told him I was sorry I survived when he did not.

I told him I would never forget him.

I told him I would tell his story and I told him I loved him.

Then I left that place.

I walked away from the stadium and I never went back.

The next day, they took the bodies down and burned them.

The smoke rose up over Riong Chon all afternoon.

I saw it from my hiding place and I knew it was them.

That was the last of my brother.

Smoke rising into the sky.

Two days later, I heard that the families had been taken to the camp.

Hay Jin and the three children, our mother, all of them loaded onto trucks and driven away.

I tried to find out more information.

I asked people who might know.

I heard that camp 18 was in the mountains near the Chinese border.

That it was one of the worst camps, a place where political prisoners were sent to die.

I heard that children rarely survive more than a few years there.

that pregnant women and babies were the first to die.

Hijin was 8 months pregnant when she was arrested.

I do not know if she gave birth in the camp.

I do not know if the baby survived.

I will probably never know.

That knowledge that I will never know what happened to them, that I cannot help them, that they are suffering and I am free.

That knowledge is a weight I carry every single day.

After the families were taken away, I knew it was time to leave.

There was nothing left for me in Ring Chon.

Everyone I love was either dead or in prison.

I started making plans to escape to China.

I contacted people who knew the roots.

I gathered what little money I had.

But before I left, I made a promise.

I promised God and I promised my brother that I would tell this story, that I would make sure the world knew what happened, that Sun’s death would not be meaningless.

I did not know then how I would keep that promise.

I did not know I would end up here years later telling you all of this, but I knew I had to try.

So I prepared to leave my country to become a defector, to spend the rest of my life in exile.

And I carry with me the images of that day, the sound of the rifles, the sight of my brother’s blood, the sound of their singing, amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

Those words sustain them as they died.

Those words would sustain me as I tried to leave.

The days after the execution blur together in my memory.

I know I stayed in Ryon for another week, maybe two.

I know I hid in different places, abandoned buildings, storage sheds, once in a pigsty where the smell was so bad I could barely breathe.

I know I begged for food from people who pied me or hated the government enough to help, but I do not remember the details clearly.

It was like I was moving through water, everything slow and heavy and distant.

Part of me had died on that stage with Sunung Min.

The part that was still alive was just going through the motions.

I remember lying in the dark one night and praying.

It was the first time I had really prayed since the execution.

I asked God why he had let this happen.

Why he had not saved Sunung min.

Why he had not stopped the soldiers or struck down the officials or opened the prison doors like he did for Peter in the Bible.

I did not get an answer, just silence.

But in that silence, I heard Sunung Min’s voice in my memory.

words he had said to me once when we were reading the Bible together.

Words about how Jesus himself asked God to take away the cup of suffering, but then said, “Not my will, but yours be done.

I did not understand it.

I still do not fully understand it.

” But lying there in the darkness, I made a decision.

I would leave.

I would escape.

I would tell the story.

Not because I wanted to, but because someone had to.

I contacted a man I knew who helped people cross into China.

His name was Mr.

An.

He was not a Christian.

He was just a businessman who saw an opportunity to make money from desperate people.

But he was reliable.

People who paid him usually made it across.

I met him in a back alley one evening.

I told him I needed a leave as soon as possible.

He looked at me and I could tell he knew who I was.

News traveled fast in a small town.

Everyone knew about the execution.

Everyone knew the brother of one of the condemned was missing.

He asked if I had money.

I gave him everything I had.

Savings I had hidden.

Money our mother had kept buried in the courtyard.

money I had backed and borrowed.

It was not much, but it was enough.

He told me to be ready in three days.

He would send someone to get me.

Those three days were the longest of my life.

I was terrified that every sound was the boy coming for me.

That someone had seen me meeting with Mr.

Anne and reported it.

That I would be caught just before escaping.

But no one came.

On the third night, a young man appeared at my hiding place just after dark.

He did not give his name.

He just told me to follow him and stay quiet.

We walked through Ryong Chon, avoiding the main streets, staying in the shadows.

We passed my old house.

The door was still broken from when the boy raided it.

The windows were dark.

No one lived there now.

I wanted to stop to go inside one last time to see the room I had shared with Sunung Min to find something to remember him by.

But the young man pulled my arm and whispered that we had to keep moving.

So I walked past my home for the last time and did not look back.

We walked for hours heading north toward the borders.

There were two other people with us, a woman maybe in her 30s and a teenage girl.

We did not talk.

We just walked in silence through the darkness.

Just before dawn, we stopped at a farm on the outskirts of a small village.

The young man led us to a shed and told us to hide there.

He said we would cross tomorrow night.

We had to wait for the right time when the guards change shifts.

We spent the whole next day in that shed.

It was hot and cramped and it smelled like manure.

The woman had brought some food, rice balls and dried fish.

We shared it among the four of us.

It was the first real meal I had eaten in days.

The teenage girl was crying quietly.

I asked her what was wrong, but she would not answer.

The woman told me the girl’s father had been executed the month before for trying to defect.

Now the girl was defecting anyway.

She had nowhere else to go.

I told her I understood that my brother had been executed too.

She looked at me then and I saw recognition in her eyes.

She whispered the pastor.

I nodded.

She said she had heard about it, that people were talking about how they sang at their execution, how they refused to deny their faith even at the end.

She said they were brave.

I wanted to tell her that bravery had nothing to do with it, that it was faith, that it was love, that it was something bigger than any of us.

But I just nodded and we sat in silence.

When night came, the young man returned.

He had another man with him, older, who looked like he had done this many times before.

They gave us dark clothes and told us to change.

They told us to leave everything behind except what we could carry in our pockets.

I had nothing to carry.

Everything I own in the world was already gone.

We left the shed and walked north through fields and along the edges of forest.

We moved fast, almost running.

The moon was half full and gave just enough light to see by.

After maybe 2 hours, we reached the river.

The Tuman River, the border between North Korea and China.

It was narrower than I expected, maybe 30 or 40 m across.

The water was stuck and moving fast.

I could hear it rushing over rocks.

The older man pointed to a spot downstream where the current was slower.

He said that was where we would cross, but first we had to wait for the guards to pass.

We crouched in the bushes along the bank and waited.

It was cold.

The woman was shivering.

The teenage girl was breathing too loud and the older man told her to be quiet.

After what felt like forever, we heard footsteps.

Two North Korean border guards walking along the bank, talking quietly to each other.

They passed within 10 m of where we were hiding.

We held our breath until they were gone.

Then the older man whispered that it was time.

We moved down to the water’s edge.

The older man went first, stepping into the river.

The water came up to his waist immediately.

He turned and motioned for us to follow.

The young man went next, then the woman, then the teenage girl, then me.

The water was shockingly cold.

It took my breath away.

The current was stronger than it looked.

I had to fight to keep my footing on the slippery rocks.

The older man led us across slowly.

The water got deeper.

At the deepest point, it was up to my chest.

I am not a strong swimmer.

I panicked for a moment, thinking I was going to be swept away.

But the woman grabbed my arm and helped me keep my balance.

We kept moving forward, step by step, fighting the current.

And then finally, the water got shallower.

We climbed up the far bank and collapsed on the ground.

We were in China.

I lay there on the wet ground, breathing hard, and I felt nothing.

No relief, no joy, just emptiness.

I had escaped North Korea.

But I had left everything I loved there.

My brother’s grave or the place where his ashes had been scattered, my family in the prison camp, my home.

The older man told us to get up.

We were not safe yet.

The Chinese border guards were not far away.

and if they caught us, they would send us back.

We had to get to a safe house before dawn.

We walked for another hour through Chinese farmland.

Finally, we reached a small house on the edge of a village.

The older man knocked on the door in a pattern.

Three knocks, pause, two knocks.

A Korean Chinese man opened the door.

He looked at us and quickly ushered us inside.

The house was small and crowded.

There were already five or six other North Korean defectors there hiding.

All of us crammed into one room.

The Korean Chinese man gave us blankets and told us to sleep.

He said we would stay here for a few days until it was safe to move on.

I found a spot in the corner and lay down.

I was exhausted, but I could not sleep.

I just lay there staring at the ceiling, listening to other people breathing and snoring around me.

I thought about Sunung Min.

I wondered what he would think if he knew I had made it across.

I wonder if he would be proud of me or disappointed that I had run.

I thought about the last time I saw him, his body hanging limp against the ropes, the blood, the silence after the gunfire.

I thought about his children in the prison camp.

Were they still alive? Were they cold? Were they hungry? Were they crying for their father? I thought about our mother.

Was she still alive? Had the camp killed her yet? I thought about all these things and I wished I had died with them.

I stayed in that safe house for 5 days.

Other defectors came and went.

Some were moving on to the next stage of their journey.

Some were just arriving, still wet from crossing the river.

Everyone had a story.

The woman who had crossed with me had left because her husband had been executed for stealing food.

The teenage girl had left because her whole family was going to be sent to a camp.

An old man had left because he was starving and there was no food left in his village.

No one talked much.

We were all too tired, too traumatized, too afraid.

On the sixth day, the Korean Chinese man told me it was time to move.

He had arranged for me to go to another safe house deeper in China, away from the border.

He put me in the back of a truck with three other defectors.

We hid under blankets and boxes.

We could barely breathe, but we stayed quiet.

The truck drove for hours.

Every time it stopped, I thought we had been caught.

But each time it started moving again.

Finally, we arrived at another house in a small Chinese town.

The man who owned it was a Christian.

He was part of an underground network that helped North Korean defectors.

This house was different.

It was cleaner, safer, and there was food, real food, rice and vegetables, and even some meat.

The Christian man told us we could stay there for a few weeks while we decided what to do next.

He said, “Some people stayed in China and tried to build lives there, working illegally.

Others tried to make it to South Korea through Southeast Asia.

” He asked if any of us were Christians.

I raised my hand.

He smiled.

He asked me to tell him my story.

So I told him.

I told him about Sang Min, about the underground church, about the execution, about the singing.

When I finished, he was crying.

He said he had heard stories like mine before, but it never got easier to hear them.

He said that there were people who wanted to help, organizations that documented these stories that tried to bring attention to what was happening in North Korea.

He asked if I would be willing to share my story more publicly someday.

I did not know how to answer.

Part of me wanted to hide forever to forget everything that happened.

But another part of me remembered the promise I had made.

I told him yes.

Someday when I was ready I would tell the story.

I stayed in that house for two months.

During that time I met other North Korean Christians who had defected.

We started having small Bible studies together.

It was strange to pray out loud without whispering to sing hymns at normal volume to not be afraid.

But I was afraid anyway.

afraid that the Chinese police would raid the house and send us all back.

It happens sometimes.

The Chinese government had an agreement with North Korea to return defectors.

So even in China, we were not truly free.

The Christian men helped me find work, illegal work, under the table in a factory.

I worked 12 hours a day for very little money.

But it was something.

It let me save up for the next part of the journey because I had decided I could not stay in China.

I needed to go somewhere truly safe.

South Korea maybe or beyond.

The Christian men put me in contact with people who could help.

They were part of what some called the New Underground Railroad, a network of Christians and activists who helped North Korean defectors escaped through China to Southeast Asia.

The journey was dangerous and expensive, but it was the only way to real freedom.

In early 2010, almost a year after Sang Min’s execution, I left China.

I travel with a group of five other defectors and a guide.

We took buses and trains through southern China.

Always nervous, always ready to run if police ask for papers.

We crossed into Laos through the jungle.

We walked for two days through thick forest, sleeping on the ground, eating very little.

I got sick with a fever, but had to keep walking anyway.

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