In August of 1958, my mother passed away at the age of 80. She had first gotten sick while we were living in the school house at Kim Il Sung University. There was a fireplace in the corridor of the house. She did not see the fireplace in the dark, tripped and hurt her back. She could not get proper treatment, and died of pleurisy some years later. <\/p>\n
It really broke my heart because she passed away just as our life was getting better after I started working at the Central Committee of the Party. My mother loved her granddaughters so dearly, and until the day she died she was always helping us out with petty chores at home. <\/p>\n
So what happened to my siblings?<\/p>\n
My brother had died, but my sister-in-law was still doing well and my eldest nephew was only 10 years younger than me. After getting discharged from the army, he graduated from the math program at Kim Il Sung University and went to work for the rocket research center in the Academy of Sciences for Defense. He made it up to director, but died of an illness in 1983. Thanks to him, it wasn\u2019t so difficult for my sister-in-law to go on. <\/p>\n
My eldest sister died in an American bombing raid during the Korean War. My brother-in-law, however, married another woman after her death. I never did visit them. <\/p>\n
My second sister was having a very difficult time, though. It was because of her husband who, while working as a truck driver, had crossed over to the South Korean side during the war. She was the one who had favored me the most when I was young, and I felt very sad that she was suffering so badly. My father often said that it was a shame my second sister had been born a girl since she was the smartest of the lot of us. Later on, when my father was just about to pass away, she came home. He couldn\u2019t speak at all; he just stared at her as tears ran uncontrollably. It was the first and last time I saw him cry. <\/p>\n
There, I asked her why her husband had crossed over to South Korea, and she answered me in a melancholy tone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the war broke out, he was mobilized by the army. But then when the People\u2019s Army was retreating, he didn\u2019t go with them. Instead, he returned home. At that time there were a lot people who did that. He wasn\u2019t even a Party member, so he was afraid of possible punishments he might receive when the People\u2019s Army attacked again, so he decided to go to South Korea with some of his friends. Before he crossed over he told me that you were going to come back from Russia and would be able to help out and take care of me. So I stayed and he left for the South.\u201d<\/p>\n
It would have been so much better if she had crossed over to South Korea with him.<\/p>\n
She had two daughters. She had gone back to the countryside near Seungho-ri with them and had been living there. But people were very harsh on her and her girls just because they were the family of a \u2018defector.\u2019 My sister refused to give in to them because she thought she could trust her powerful brother who was working in the Central Committee of the Party. I thought the executives in the village would help her out since I was one of Kim Il Sung\u2019s secretaries, but they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Many widows who had lost their husbands in the war lived in the countryside. It was they who bullied my sister the most. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t expect me to give in, do you?\u201d She told them. \u201cThere\u2019s absolutely no reason for me to feel oppressed just because my husband crossed over to South Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n
My sister stood up against them. I was always worried about her. One day, a vice-director of the Guidance Department asked me to meet him and mentioned the whole trouble about my sister.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have received a report from the Party in Seungho-ri. They say your sister does not follow the orders of the Party or the chairman of the collective farm. She is also religious. If the secretary general hears about this, it might worry him. Please persuade your sister to be careful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNaturally.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few days later I went to see my sister. I advised her to straighten out her relationship with the cadres of Seungho-ri. However, she rejected my comments, telling me about all the wrongdoings of the cadres on the collective farm. Finally, I lost the argument. <\/p>\n
The relationship between her and the cadres stayed bad. The only thing I could do for her was to look after her children. The older one, a girl, was very clever. After graduating from People\u2019s school, she was admitted to a training school for bookkeeping and graduated with honors. As a result, she was sent to be the accountant on a collective farm. However, the problem was that she was just like her mother; she had a strong sense of justice and never failed to follow her principles, so she was also bullied by farm cadres. Eventually she too came to see me to get advice. <\/p>\n
I heard her pleas but could not figure out how I could help her. First, I persuaded her to try and put up with it. <\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough you are quite right, it is a huge disadvantage for you to confront the manager like that. And you shouldn\u2019t do it, anyway. Maybe it would help if someone were on your side, but I hardly think anyone would side with you. Try to avoid dealing with him directly and wait for a while. It might gradually get better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crying hard, she said she could never do that. Even after that she kept confronting the manager and, sadly, ended up having a breakdown. <\/p>\n
The vice-director of the Guidance Department then suggested that I have my sister and her family move to another region, since causing a problem with subordinates would be a disadvantage for us all. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s for their good, it should be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
I made them move to Yangkang Province. I had to lie to my sister that I had gotten fired because of her when I sent them there. <\/p>\n
A year later she came to visit me. I asked her how she had come to Pyongyang without a pass, and she said that she had learned from a student studying at Kim Il Sung University that I was still working in the Central Committee, and got help from him.<\/p>\n
I really felt heartbroken when I saw her, so I visited the vice-director of the Guidance Department again and he answered me like this. <\/p>\n
\u201cThen let\u2019s get a house at Suncheon and send her there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since he had been involved in my sister\u2019s issue from the start and rated me highly, he did my favor with a good grace. <\/p>\n
My sister died in Suncheon in 1996. I had wanted to visit her family, but the mourning period for Kim Il Sung hadn\u2019t ended up yet so I could not go. So I sent my wife instead. My niece\u2019s mental problem was still untreated. <\/p>\n
She must have been about 60 by then. From time to time, when she\u2019s back in her normal state, I hear that she says she misses her uncle. I bitterly regret leaving her alone and letting her ruin her whole life. <\/p>\n
If I were to claim that the reason why I failed to protect my sister and her family was the class struggle theory, everyone would call it irresponsible. However, the communists asserted that class interests are the supreme interests, which caused the relationship between parent and child or brother and sister to break apart, divide the people and make them regard one another with hostility. Why does it become the sin of a woman when her husband crosses over to South Korea of his own accord? No one from a free democratic country would be able to answer the question. If it is considered a sin of any sort, then it is the husband\u2019s. But it is very different in a communist society. <\/p>\n
North Korean communists claimed that we had to get rid of the existing hierarchy through class struggle. However, this was just like using more skillful thieves to get rid of thieves. The first thieves may be gone, but the will to steal stays and the remaining thieves are even stronger. North Korea\u2019s rulers demanded that we treat everyone from a hierarchical point of view, and created conscious awareness of that hierarchical society, something which is even more frightening than a subconsciously hierarchical society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In August of 1958, my mother passed away at the age of 80. She had first gotten sick while we were living in the school house at Kim Il Sung University. There was a fireplace in the corridor of the house. She did not see the fireplace in the dark, tripped and hurt her back. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n