Escape from Hell

KANG Kil-Ok knew she had to flee North Korea after security guards beat her 61-year-old mother so badly that the old lady couldn’t walk.

It was the summer of 1997. Kang’s brother and his family had vanished. One suspicion was that the regime of dictator Kim Jong Il had taken them away, to a prison camp or some other terrible fate, for a crime they may or may not have committed. With government officials quizzing the relatives, however, the disappearance could really mean only a single thing: The family had fled to China, and the agents wanted to track them down.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.

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KANG Kil-Ok knew she had to flee North Korea after security guards beat her 61-year-old mother so badly that the old lady couldn’t walk.

It was the summer of 1997. Kang’s brother and his family had vanished. One suspicion was that the regime of dictator Kim Jong Il had taken them away, to a prison camp or some other terrible fate, for a crime they may or may not have committed. With government officials quizzing the relatives, however, the disappearance could really mean only a single thing: The family had fled to China, and the agents wanted to track them down.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.