Two days ago finished reading “In the Garden of Beasts” by Erik Larson. Really good book. Great angle to watch the unfolding of about four years in the mid ‘30s from the social scene in Berlin—particularly the society of foreigners—particularly the American ambassador and his family. It’s well written, has a great pace, extremely readable and I was taken with seeing how people viewed Hitler at the time. Uncanny.
While I was at my folks’ place for Easter I was telling Mama about it and she kept saying, “That’s what we’re doing now with North Korea! We keep expecting things to blow over. Or we figure the kid is crazy and surely no one will let him get away with this!” Clearly history is repeating itself, she and I believe. It’s scary really. The U.S. was timid in the ‘30s and look what happened. How many people died—and I’m not just talking the concentration camps. But there’s the night of the long knives where around 250 people were killed simply because they were beginning to balk at Hitler’s unmitigated terror and force of will with impunity. That was June 30, 1934. U.S. newspapers printed the story. It was common knowledge—yet we did nothing. Studying it in school I know I wondered why we didn’t do anything—why Germans didn’t do anything...and people there at the time kept saying things along the lines of being sure the German people would rise up and not stand for any more of this. But the German people were terrified—even leaders as high up as von Papen were terrified of Hitler’s power. And the German people were hungry and largely unemployed. Hitler promised as well as threatened and they did what they thought was best for survival at the time. But foreign governments do not have my same defense.
Especially now that North Korea seems to be behaving similarly. I am now reading “Escape from Camp 14" by Blaine Harden (published 2012) about Shin Dong-hyuk, first person born in a work camp (Kaechon) in North Korea to successfully escape. He is the same age as Kim Jong Eun. Because this rampant torture and deadly force with impunity is happening now, and is now becoming common knowledge, and we have known for decades that the ruling Kims are cruel and crazy and unpredictable, I would say the problem now is worse than Hitler’s regime. In the NK work camps, people are being born and raised in order to fill work detail and apparently fulfill their bloodthirsty inclinations and are worked to death, literally. There is no knowledge of the outside world. There is no access from the outside world. And there is no economic benefit from polarizing the issue. No celebrity represents the problem.
What can we do? I wonder what it would take to overthrow that regime and rehabilitate hundreds of thousands impacted...what kind of society would it become to have all those people loosed at once... No sense of morality or equal justice. No sense of compassion or love. I’m only just now in chapter 3 of the life this boy led in the camps and how he escaped. I confess I am afraid to listen to international news as things develop in that part of the world. I confess I feel despair and hopelessness that anything can be done. Nor do I have any idea of what could be done. But I believe world leaders have a responsibility to gather and take serious, wise, calculated steps to change things for the better simply because it is the right thing to do.
There are organizations on the front line I think... Amnesty international. North Korea Freedom Coalition. Liberty in North Korea.
http://blog.amnestyusa.org/asia/north-korea-stories-from-the-forgotten-prisons/
http://www.nkfreedom.org/
http://libertyinnorthkorea.org/
http://www.youtube.com/linkglobal
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