North Korean Holocaust

I've read a few books this year on North Korea, including Melanie Kirkpatrick's Escape from North Korea and Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader. Both dramatically bear testimony to the dire human rights situation in North Korea. Starvation, torture, forced sexual slavery, false imprisonment, etc.

Adrian Hong recently spoke at an event, and his remarks offered more urgency to addressing the desperation there.

Hong discusses the immense dangers that North Korean refugees face after crossing the border into China, where they can face imprisonment, sex trafficking and often a return home to much worse. “To go through that much risk, whatever you’re escaping from back home has to be pretty bad,” he says. “Extraordinarily bad. Far worse than whatever you’re facing to get out of that place. So North Korea is that thing. It is that bad.”

I'm going to keep on the look out for programs in DC about this, and I wish I had seen Kirkpatrick at a book event.  Yes, the media is laughing at China's party paper buying the Onion's portrayal of Kim Jong Un as "Sexiest Man Alive."  But there's nothing humorous about the situation over there. It truly may be a Holocaust with so many people dying, and so few caring.  That's the parallel to the most infamous 20th century Holocaust.