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.Nothing much happened if you didn’t criticize well enough or happened to criticize too sharply.At Yodok, the stakes were much higher.Punishments consisted of hours of nighttime wood chopping, even for ten- and thirteen-year-old children.The atmosphere was strained.You could feel the fear and hatred spreading through the room.The kids were not as adept at controlling their emotions as adults, who knew that the wisest thing to do was accept whatever criticism they received.The adults understood that it was just a routine that had nothing to do with what their fellow prisoners really thought of them.Soon enough, the criticized person would have to criticize his criticizer.Those were the rules; there was nothing personal about it.Yet the faultfinding of peers was hard for kids to accept, especially if it struck them as unfair.They would get angry, argue, interrupt each other.While the short Wednesday meetings, which lasted only twenty minutes, were hardly long enough to cause major damage, the Saturday afternoon sessions, which went on for nearly two hours, were considerably more lively and tension-filled.A special session also could be called if something unusual took place in school.The substance of adults’ criticisms was basically the same as the children’s: “I wasn’t careful enough during work hours.I arrived late yesterday because I was being careless, etc.” The major difference was that the children’s sessions were conducted among one’s classmates.As for the adults, each work team had its own location for Wednesday sessions, while on Saturday the different teams met together in a single large building, on whose walls hung the portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.At the far end of the room was a platform with a table where the prisoner sat to present his self-criticism.Next to the table stood two guards, along with a representative of the prisoners.There were no other chairs in the room.The other prisoners sat on the floor in groups of five, clustered with their fellow team members.The assembly hall was always overcrowded.Some prisoners dozed off, others became nauseous from the intensity of the body odor that hung in the air—there was no soap at Yodok.Sometimes we met in smaller groups to prepare our Saturday presentation in advance.Four of us would discuss our misdeeds for the week, while the fifth team member took notes.Afterward, the report was presented to a camp administrator, who selected the week’s ten most “interesting” cases for presentation before the entire village.The prelude to the ceremony varied somewhat, but the main action was always the same.The wrongdoer would step onto the platform, his head bowed, and launch into his self-criticism with a fool-proof formula such as, “Our Great Leader commanded us,” or “Our Dear Leader has taught us.” The offender then cited one of the head of state’s great “Thoughts,” relating either to culture, youth, work, or study, depending on the offense committed.A typical criticism went something like this:“At the famous conference of March 28, 1949, our Great Leader stated that our youth must always be the most energetic in the world, in terms both of work and study.But instead of heeding the wise reflections of our respected comrade Kim Il-sung, I twice arrived late at role call.I alone was responsible for this tardiness, which demonstrated neglect for the luminous reflection of our Great Leader.From now on, I will wake up a half hour earlier and make myself equal to the task of fulfilling his orders.I will renew myself and become a faithful warrior in the revolution of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.”Then it was up to the presiding security agent to decide whether the self-criticism had been satisfactory.If it had been, the prisoner could proceed to the next step: criticizing someone else.If his criticism was found wanting, the agent would ask a member of the audience to expand on the criticism proffered.If the accused tried to defend himself, a third prisoner, and, if necessary, a fourth, was selected to take up the assault.Self-defense was never wise, because the review couldn’t end until the prisoner admitted his faults.Once a prisoner relented, we moved on to the next preselected case.The session lasted from an hour and a half to two hours, running from 9:00 P.M.until about 11:00 P.M., which wasn’t always enough time to get through all ten cases.If time ran short, the agents consolidated the wrongdoing of an entire team, or several of its members, into a single presentation.A member of the guilty team would then present the self-criticism on behalf of everyone involved.The sessions were so conventional and formalized that it was hard to take them seriously—despite the perfect silence imposed by the hard gaze of the guards.We were like bored kids in a class they find meaningless.The smallest distraction would set us off.It happened several times that audience members let out an audible fart in the middle of a self-criticism.A little nothing like that was all it took to shatter the ceremony’s contrived solemnity and send the guards into a fit of rage.Sometimes they pretended not to hear, but other times they demanded to know who the culprit was.“Who farted?” they screamed.“The person who farted stand up!” If no one confessed, the guards kept us seated there until the criminal was identified, which eventually he always was.The prisoner would then be pushed toward the self-criticism table to expiate his fart with a mea culpa, at the end of which he usually received a week’s worth of supplementary work details.We dreaded these long meetings that shortened our nights needlessly.They were too much of a sham to ever take seriously, but that’s not the way camp authorities saw it.They were always reminding us that “work alone can’t root out your rotten ideology.You need control.” What they meant was ideological control, and maintaining it was in part our responsibility [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Nothing much happened if you didn’t criticize well enough or happened to criticize too sharply.At Yodok, the stakes were much higher.Punishments consisted of hours of nighttime wood chopping, even for ten- and thirteen-year-old children.The atmosphere was strained.You could feel the fear and hatred spreading through the room.The kids were not as adept at controlling their emotions as adults, who knew that the wisest thing to do was accept whatever criticism they received.The adults understood that it was just a routine that had nothing to do with what their fellow prisoners really thought of them.Soon enough, the criticized person would have to criticize his criticizer.Those were the rules; there was nothing personal about it.Yet the faultfinding of peers was hard for kids to accept, especially if it struck them as unfair.They would get angry, argue, interrupt each other.While the short Wednesday meetings, which lasted only twenty minutes, were hardly long enough to cause major damage, the Saturday afternoon sessions, which went on for nearly two hours, were considerably more lively and tension-filled.A special session also could be called if something unusual took place in school.The substance of adults’ criticisms was basically the same as the children’s: “I wasn’t careful enough during work hours.I arrived late yesterday because I was being careless, etc.” The major difference was that the children’s sessions were conducted among one’s classmates.As for the adults, each work team had its own location for Wednesday sessions, while on Saturday the different teams met together in a single large building, on whose walls hung the portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.At the far end of the room was a platform with a table where the prisoner sat to present his self-criticism.Next to the table stood two guards, along with a representative of the prisoners.There were no other chairs in the room.The other prisoners sat on the floor in groups of five, clustered with their fellow team members.The assembly hall was always overcrowded.Some prisoners dozed off, others became nauseous from the intensity of the body odor that hung in the air—there was no soap at Yodok.Sometimes we met in smaller groups to prepare our Saturday presentation in advance.Four of us would discuss our misdeeds for the week, while the fifth team member took notes.Afterward, the report was presented to a camp administrator, who selected the week’s ten most “interesting” cases for presentation before the entire village.The prelude to the ceremony varied somewhat, but the main action was always the same.The wrongdoer would step onto the platform, his head bowed, and launch into his self-criticism with a fool-proof formula such as, “Our Great Leader commanded us,” or “Our Dear Leader has taught us.” The offender then cited one of the head of state’s great “Thoughts,” relating either to culture, youth, work, or study, depending on the offense committed.A typical criticism went something like this:“At the famous conference of March 28, 1949, our Great Leader stated that our youth must always be the most energetic in the world, in terms both of work and study.But instead of heeding the wise reflections of our respected comrade Kim Il-sung, I twice arrived late at role call.I alone was responsible for this tardiness, which demonstrated neglect for the luminous reflection of our Great Leader.From now on, I will wake up a half hour earlier and make myself equal to the task of fulfilling his orders.I will renew myself and become a faithful warrior in the revolution of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.”Then it was up to the presiding security agent to decide whether the self-criticism had been satisfactory.If it had been, the prisoner could proceed to the next step: criticizing someone else.If his criticism was found wanting, the agent would ask a member of the audience to expand on the criticism proffered.If the accused tried to defend himself, a third prisoner, and, if necessary, a fourth, was selected to take up the assault.Self-defense was never wise, because the review couldn’t end until the prisoner admitted his faults.Once a prisoner relented, we moved on to the next preselected case.The session lasted from an hour and a half to two hours, running from 9:00 P.M.until about 11:00 P.M., which wasn’t always enough time to get through all ten cases.If time ran short, the agents consolidated the wrongdoing of an entire team, or several of its members, into a single presentation.A member of the guilty team would then present the self-criticism on behalf of everyone involved.The sessions were so conventional and formalized that it was hard to take them seriously—despite the perfect silence imposed by the hard gaze of the guards.We were like bored kids in a class they find meaningless.The smallest distraction would set us off.It happened several times that audience members let out an audible fart in the middle of a self-criticism.A little nothing like that was all it took to shatter the ceremony’s contrived solemnity and send the guards into a fit of rage.Sometimes they pretended not to hear, but other times they demanded to know who the culprit was.“Who farted?” they screamed.“The person who farted stand up!” If no one confessed, the guards kept us seated there until the criminal was identified, which eventually he always was.The prisoner would then be pushed toward the self-criticism table to expiate his fart with a mea culpa, at the end of which he usually received a week’s worth of supplementary work details.We dreaded these long meetings that shortened our nights needlessly.They were too much of a sham to ever take seriously, but that’s not the way camp authorities saw it.They were always reminding us that “work alone can’t root out your rotten ideology.You need control.” What they meant was ideological control, and maintaining it was in part our responsibility [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]