Four North Korean defectors shared their stories of escape and life afterward at the University on Saturday.

In a white room with windows stretching from the floor to the ceiling, the blue sky seeped in and reflected off of the floor. Every storyteller sat in a wooden chair lined up in the front of the room.

Supported by Liberty in North Korea, a nonprofit that rescues North Korean defectors and raises awareness for suppressed people, the panelists presented their lives to a room with no empty seats.

“In North Korea, the lives of women and children were as insignificant as insects,” said Noah Park, one of the four panelists.

Divorced families like his are despised in North Korea’s patriarchal society and left without support. With no social welfare, Park’s mother had to sell her clothes to feed him. 

Park’s helplessness pained him more than his hunger.

“When my father stabbed my mother in the lungs, that’s how she felt. She couldn’t breathe,” Park said.

Coming back from the brink of death, his mother divorced and took her children to a remote city, Park said. However, his physically abusive father faced no legal repercussions.

“We wanted to breathe, but felt like we were suffocating,” Park said.

Fleeing to South Korea, Park and his family were able to overcome their suffocating past. His mother works as a schoolteacher, and his sister became a nurse after studying politics at the most prestigious college in South Korea.

Ending his speech on the strength of his family and their will to overcome adversity, Park’s straight face transformed into a smile.

“It was very insightful to get a look into what modern day oppression was like,” said Shreyas Rajagopalan, senior in LAS. “This definitely motivates me to educate myself more.”

Rajagopalan saw the event on a Reddit post and had to come because “it (felt) so impossible to come out of North Korea.”

“I think this definitely also motivates me to seek out more events like this,” said Pranav Yandamuri, senior in Engineering. “Hearing it from a firsthand source really helps put things together and confirms a lot of things for me.”

Another live event explaining all four North Korean defectors’ lives will be held virtually on Oct. 25.

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