Father tells the story of his incarceration, trial, and imprisonment in Pyongyang.
Once I began my evangelical work, membership began to increase. The policy of those governing North Korea at the time, however, was to eradicate all religious groups systematically.
Furthermore, ministers of established churches saw that many members of their congregations were coming to me, so they decided to report me to the authorities. This is how I came to be jailed for a third time in my life. This occurred at 10:00 am on February 22, 1948.
They accused me of being a spy for South Korea, an agent of the Syngman Rhee faction in Seoul. They said all kinds of things, made up all sorts of ridiculous accusations.
They claimed I was an agent sent by those wanting to take over the government north of the DMZ, an agent whose purpose was to plunder everything, and they did various other ridiculous things to have me arrested.
On the day I was handcuffed and taken to jail, I told myself, This is happening so that I can have a mark on me that says God loves me.
In the end, I was forced out into a global wilderness. That 4,300 years of history had to be indemnified in 43 years was so wearisome and unjust. You don’t know the bitterly tragic circumstances that made me go to the concentration camp in Hungnam after the loss of the entire national and global foundations that God had worked six thousand years to establish.
It seems like only yesterday that the people who wanted to welcome me as representing hope for the future, both in heaven and on earth cried out in agony, and that we pledged in desperate tears to meet again, as they watched my being led through the mist into hell, into the world of darkness.
It seems like only yesterday that I declared to them, “You are disappearing, but I will pursue my course and someday I will come back with the bright morning sun in my bosom and I will liberate you once again.”
I have never forgotten how I shouted as I was being led away in handcuffs. Each time I faced difficulty, I remember the way I prayed in that situation.
My head is shaved
I was jailed in the Internal Affairs Station because of the jealousy of the established denominations and the communist government’s policy to do away with religion.
On February 25, my head was shaved. I remember the person who shaved it and the day he did it. I can never forget how I sat and watched as my hair fell to the ground.
As I sat there, I told God I had been brought to this place by my enemies and was being forced to have my head shaved. You cannot imagine how brightly my eyes shone during that experience.
I watched my hair falling to the floor, and let go of the happiness that I had sought. It was particularly upsetting to me that I had to have my head shaved in the presence of my enemies. In the course of weaving together the circumstances of restoration, all these obstacles were particularly regrettable.
Torture and interrogation
Even when I was tortured so harshly that I threw up blood, repeatedly collapsed on the floor, and finally lost consciousness, I never asked God to help me.
Instead, I always prayed, “Father, don’t worry. I’m not dead yet. I’m not going to die yet. I am still faithful to you. I still have a mission that I need to accomplish.”
I was a devoted son, comforting God. I held the blood in my mouth and straightened my posture; even on moonless nights after I had been tortured, I never forgot the life I had led previously, offering comfort to Heaven.
The times I would collapse from torture were the moments I could hear the voice of God. The times my life seemed on the verge of coming to an end were the moments I could meet God.
You may not be able to imagine the profound background to this truth, or the deep valleys and dark tunnels that had to be traveled before this truth of the Unification Church could be revealed. I know that it was a situation where someone might ask, Hey, Rev. Moon! How did you ever get this far?
I was not beaten for my own sake but for the sake of the nation. The tears I shed were the tears of the indemnity paid so that I could shoulder the pain of a nation.
The circumstances called for me to shout, You rascal! to Satan’s face, to face the substantial manifestation of Satan and shout, Go ahead. Hit me. Hit me! When the time comes, I will repay you at least sevenfold. Currently, you are giving me the material I will need to do that.
Even as I was being put in the place of torture, I was telling them to go ahead and hit me.
Beneath my clothing, I have scars in several places that I acquired after I took up this way of life. When I see these, I consider them to be medals given to me by humanity and by Heaven. The scars remind me: Have you forgotten the pledge you made? Have you forgotten how you pledged to follow this path at the risk of your life until you die?
Each time I see these, whether it’s in the morning, noon, or evening, I rededicate myself. I tell myself, because you’ve been given these scars, you have to win. I encourage myself toward victory.
Put on trial
When I was in the North, I was originally scheduled to go to trial on April 3, but the Communist Party took so long to come up with excuses for oppressing the church that it was April 7 before I finally went to trial.
This was my fortieth day of imprisonment. I was being tried in court as someone hounded by Christianity, and the Communists took extra time in preparing the trial so they could use it to show the party members how religion was evil and like an opiate.
During my trial, certain Christian ministers came and testified against me, heaping all sorts of accusations on top of me. No one else can understand or experience how shocking this was. I still have not forgotten that time.
Throughout my life, I have kept the memory of what it felt like to be imprisoned and then taken to court. It’s a desperate feeling when you realize you are going to court and that every word you say may affect your fate.
I don’t talk much about how I even laughed at the Communist Party. I told them that my personal history was not something that would go away simply because they heaped blame on me.
It seems like just yesterday I told them that although I was going without complaint, the day would come when they would be in the palm of my hand and be held accountable by humankind for their actions.
It was Heaven’s strategy to make certain that I would not have the slightest attraction to communism, and God’s strategy to make sure I would not feel too much sympathy for Christianity that was under the communist realm. It was a strategy to make sure that I rejected all this.
Send off by members
As I was led away from the court back to jail after receiving my sentence, I shook my handcuffs in front of the members of my congregation, and they made a clear and resonating sound.
I still cannot forget how I waved goodbye to them with those handcuffs loudly clanking together. At that moment, it was as if a historic movie were being created for future generations. That moment would become an explosive foundation for countless young people in future generations to pledge their determination.
Singing songs of hope for tomorrow is more powerful than singing the sadness of today. The heart can always be bigger if it is filled with hope for tomorrow, rather than bitterness over the injustices of today. It didn’t matter how evil the enemy was that placed handcuffs on my wrists that day.
When I stood there in handcuffs and bid farewell to the church and the congregation I loved, my words were signposts pointing toward a historical judgment. That is what I felt at that moment.
As a man, I had to proudly walk down the trail that had to be blazed again. Prison was no problem, and death no hindrance to a man who understood that he could establish the original value.
I still cannot forget how the members who remained in Pyongyang waved goodbye as I was taken away. I shed no tears, but they were all weeping. It was not as if a child were dying or a husband leaving home never to return.
I could see them sniffling and wiping away tears. How tragic that was! As I watched that scene, I felt that a person who goes in search of Heaven is never abjectly unhappy.
Even if I tried, I could never forget the sound of their voices and the sight of how their whole bodies shook in sadness as I was being led away to prison. This is painful. When I think of it, in some respects, this is pain. It is pain.
Incarceration in Pyongyang Prison
I was handcuffed and taken to Pyongyang Prison on April 7, but I went with a sense of hope. I tried to imagine what it would be like when I had completed the course. I was very curious about that.
After I had been sentenced and was being led away to prison, I was filled with hope. I realized that even in prison, there would be people God had prepared.
Rather than focus on the incident immediately at hand, I thought about what was going to come after that. I told myself, Here is something that needs to be done to cross over another peak. I was expecting something like this. I wondered what would come after this.
Imprisonment in Pyongyang and then at the Hungnam special labor camp
Even while I was being led away in shackles for incarceration in Pyongyang Prison, I was promised by the spirit world that I would meet certain people there. In other words, I was promised, “If you go there, you will meet people who are like Jesus ’ three disciples.”
If this were not so, it would not be in accord with heavenly laws that govern the realm of fortune and restoration. That is why even the path of shackles and imprisonment can be the path of the greatest hope. In other words, I went to prison with hope and expectation.
I knew, “I will meet such and such a person.” I did not go to prison in despair.
Since I went to prison with such a hope, in prison I made my way, and through the merit of that hard labor, I enabled that door to be opened naturally.
To achieve this, I had to make a total indemnity condition. I knew that while I was living in prison, I had to become a sacrificial offering. This is why I took on the most difficult tasks while I was there.
Whenever I was incarcerated, I was excellent at making friends with the most senior prisoner in the cell. I only had to speak a few words to him, and we would be friends. I would sit down with him and analyze for him the psychology of each person in the cell.
Oh, this person’s face is shaped like this, so he will become like this. That person’s face is shaped like that, so this is what will happen to him, and so on. He may not have liked what I said, but he knew I was right. If I watch the senior prisoner’s face and talk to him for a week—or even just three days—I am at the point where I can say anything to him.
If I am sitting in the lowest position in the cell, where there is not much space, he moves me to a higher position. The head prisoner tells me to move up. Even if I refuse, he insists that I move to a higher position. I can make friends with anyone and make anyone my companion.
When you’re in prison, each day of the year, you can find all the material you need to write a long novel. Occasionally, you may hear someone playing a flute, and you can sing to that melody.
Then everyone in that environment joins in. Whatever situation you find yourself in, you need to be able to find a place to tie your rope around and travel back and forth. That is how you become a man who leaves his mark on history.
My primary opponent visits
While I was in prison, a person who had been my enemy visited to apologize to me. Deciding whether to meet him was a test for me. This was the man primarily responsible for putting me in jail. The person who had played the lead role in the effort to put me in jail just suddenly appeared one day.
The moment I came face to face with him, it was not a good feeling for me. I pretended not to recognize him and said, “I’m afraid I don’t know who you are.” I looked into his eyes.
In the past, he’d had a vicious and evil look, but his eyes had softened, and he stood in front of me looking very much like a human being. He told me he’d done certain things and asked me to forget all that had transpired in the past. He asked me not to think badly of him for visiting me in prison.
When he left, he gave me some food he had bought for me. Was I going to eat that, or not? That was a problem for me. In a place like a prison, food is very valuable. I received the food around lunchtime but kept it until evening because I had to think hard about what I was going to do with it.
Without having discovered the principle of love, it would be impossible to accept that kind of food. After thinking about it very seriously, I decided to share the food with others.
In addition to everything else, this man was a Communist Party official. He was part of what was called the Security Cadre, and he must have considered that I might make him lose face in the presence of the prison guards.
I could see he had a future, and I thought very seriously about his situation even though we were enemies. I could see that if he could leave with a heart-to-heart relationship with me, he would be someone who could meet me again in the future, someone who might find a new life. I still think about him in this way.
On many occasions, I felt lonely in that prison. He came to me at a time when I was lonely and gave me comfort, and I never forgot that.
Hungnam’s Bon-goong Special Labor Camp
I remember May 20, all those decades ago. It was on that day that, after being jailed in the Pyongyang Internal Affairs Station and tried, I was transferred to a prison in Hungnam.
I had wept with anger many times over, having been beaten and unjustly treated. I felt ashamed to think of Heaven, and I tried to hide my face and my body. That is why, when I was taken to prison, I asked to be handcuffed to a murderer. I became friends with him.
We were shipped to Hungnam, and it took us seventeen hours to get there. What do you suppose I thought about in the railroad car on the way there? It was an outrageous situation.
If it seemed outrageous to me, think how mortifying it must have been for God. My determination grew as I watched the scenery go by outside the train window. Can you imagine how serious I felt as I watched those mountains and meadows go by?
If I had been by myself, it would have been easy to escape, but I was shackled to the worst criminal. Incredible things that went through my mind during that trip.
On the way to Hungnam, there was a time when we were deep in the mountains, walking along a path that followed a creek. I still remember how we followed that winding road through a mountain valley.
Each step I took represented a new start toward a new world. How was I going to live in prison? I knew it would be difficult, but I was determined to go. It was a good opportunity for me to come to new realizations about myself.
The moment I entered the prison, I felt it was necessary to bring about a result that would allow us to transition from Satan’s world to God’s world. I decided that even in that environment, I would not reveal who I was, and I would not allow myself to change externally or internally.
Forced labor in the fertilizer plant
June 21. That was the day I entered that prison in 1948. I went to that North Korean Communist Party prison and engaged in hard labor for two years and eight months, working in the fertilizer factory.
Following the Bolshevik Revolution, many Russians experienced forced labor.
Communist ideology does not permit any property-owning class or anti-communist elements to exist.
In their hearts, they would like to kill all these opponents, but because of world opinion, they can’t do this. So the Communist Party collects these people, imposes forced labor on them, and waits for them to die from it.
I was in a forced labor camp in North Korea. Kim I Sung took a lesson from the Soviet experience and gave all his prisoners three years of hard labor. He left them to die.
Morning inspection and a long walk
In the morning, when it was time to go to work, all the prisoners would be taken out of their cells. The prisoners would assemble in a field, where they would be checked for any contraband items. There was a body check.
Work began at 9:00 am, and there was a four-kilometer trip to the site, which took an hour to an hour and twenty minutes. Add to that the time it took to eat a meal, and it would all take two hours.
To be able to start work at nine o’clock, we would normally wake up at half past four. In that situation, when a man would sit down, he would feel dizzy and his head would begin to spin. He would try to stand, but wouldn’t be able to.
Occasionally, the morning inspection would take two hours, and it felt as though the cold was carving off pieces of flesh from our bodies. We felt a lot more freedom when we were working.
When the wind blew in from the ocean in Hungnam, it would carry tiny pebbles.
That wind that constantly buffeted us seemed like an enemy. It was so cold; one couldn’t help but shiver and shout out.
No matter how hard a person tried not to make a noise, it was no use. My way of fighting the cold and overcoming it in that situation was to think to myself, Make it colder. Make it colder. Make it colder!
Each morning when we left the prison, we had to line up in four lines and hold hands with the people next to us. Next to this formation were guards who were carrying guns.
If someone fell out of line or was caught not holding hands, he would be reported as having attempted to escape. You couldn’t hold your head up straight.
Even though we would eat before leaving the prison, our legs were so weak that prisoners would often stumble on the way to the factory. Over a four-kilometer distance, this might happen five or six times, sometimes more than ten times in one trip.
We lacked energy, but we had to drag our legs to the factory and do the work. I remember this every time things seem to get difficult. In that situation, when my mind seemed to wander far off, I would pledge to be a man of God. That is how I endured to the end.
Forced Labor at the Chosun Nitrogen Fertilizer Company (Hungnam Factory)
We worked at a fertilizer factory, where ammonia sulfate would come in by conveyor belt and pile up on the floor; it looked like a mountain. At first, it would be hot. As time passed, the crystals would melt and stick together, becoming solid like ice.
It looked like a waterfall when it fell off the conveyor belt into a pile on the floor. It was just like a white waterfall. The pile was about twenty meters high. We had to dig the ammonia sulfate out of this mountain and put it into bags.
Eight hundred to nine hundred people would do this work. We would normally take a single large pile and divide it into two.
It was very difficult work. Per day, each team of ten people was responsible for bagging one thousand three hundred bags, each weighing forty kilograms. If a team couldn’t finish the work in eight hours, its members had their food ration cut in half. We wore thimble-like protection on our fingers.
As we would tie the bags, though, these protective covers would get holes in them and eventually fall off. Each person was responsible for a hundred and thirty bags a day, and this was truly hard labor.
A normal person living in society probably could not do even seventy or eighty. We were told to do almost twice that. Essentially, we were being told to die.
We had to take the bags to the dock and load them onto a Soviet ship that was moored there. We had to achieve a certain tonnage, which was checked daily.
Sulfuric acid is harmful to the body. It causes your hair to fall out and your skin to yield water when squeezed. After six months, you start coughing up blood. Typically, people thought they had contracted tuberculosis and became so despondent that they would die. They’d last a year and a half, two years at most.
Your skin begins to crack and bleed, so much so that after a while, your bones become visible. It took less than a week for our cotton uniforms to become torn.
After a person had worked for six months, all his skin cells would be dead, and water would come out when he squeezed them. You wake up in the morning to find blood dripping from the cracks in your skin.
Each day, we were given a fifteen-minute break about halfway to lunchtime, an hour for lunch, and another fifteen-minute break halfway through the afternoon. So we had about an hour and a half to rest. At lunchtime, all the men were so tired they just ate where their teams were working.
You may be curious about the toilets. In a large factory like that, they would dig a hole in the dirt floor and harden it with concrete. A channel at the bottom of that hole let the excrement wash away.
We used that for a toilet, but when we were working and had to have a bowel movement, our only real option was to dig a hole in the ammonium sulfate and do it right there.
It was all fertilizer anyway, so we just deposited it in there. We would squat down and fire off like a cannon, quickly. We had to do it quickly, and otherwise, we would be beaten severely.
Total investment in the work
As I was tying those bags of fertilizer, I told myself that this was the final front line.
Although I was engaged in labor, I did not consider it to be labor. The time spent engaged in labor was time for prayer.
I told myself I had been born to perform this kind of work. Always, I poured my full sincerity and dedication into the work, as though I were engaged in the providence of restoration.
While I worked, I always thought of what I had experienced in the spirit world, and I imagined I was the main actor in a movie that I would one day show to my descendants and to the people who would follow me. Occasionally, the bell would ring for us to take a break, and I wouldn’t even hear it.
I have often heard people describe me as a man who is like a steel rod. Whenever I applied myself to a task, I did it with true joy. I liked doing that task more than anyone else did. I simply gave precedence to that emotion; there was no other secret to my work.
Eventually, I would work through the task. Prison life is difficult; you have to find a way to work through it. I told myself that even if I were to die in that prison, I wanted to leave behind a philosophy that would make people say of me, You died in victory, not in defeat.
I weighed 19 kwan 300 (72 kg) then. Other prisoners all became thinner, but I did not lose weight. People began to make me an object of study. During the almost three years I was in that prison, I rarely became ill.
Just once, I caught malaria. No matter how sick I became, I didn’t take medicine. I continued working, sometimes even as I fasted. I suffered from malaria for twenty-four days, but I never took time off from work; anyone who tries to avoid a difficult task will not be able to endure.
Volunteering for the most difficult tasks
When you are in prison, it is important not to allow yourself to be indebted to anyone else, no matter how difficult your situation may be. This is the way for a person to rise to the highest point. Receiving special favors from others is not allowed on the road of indemnity.
Because I knew this, I decided when I first entered the prison that I would take responsibility for the most difficult tasks, ones that no one else could perform. In terms of taking responsibility, I would be responsible for several times what others did. I was already telling myself this.
As we worked our way through the mountain of fertilizer, we would get farther and farther from the place where we would take our bags to be weighed. If we took the time to carry the bags to the scale, we wouldn’t finish the work within the deadline.
If we had worked our way four meters into the mountain, it would take five minutes to take a bag to the scale and have it weighed. We would not be able to work fast enough unless someone stood in there and tossed the bags out. Who was going to do such a difficult task? I took responsibility for doing that.
I did about thirty percent of my team’s work. I did the most difficult task and took care of the other team members so that we always finished our work by half past twelve, instead of five o’clock.
Once we had met our quota of one thousand three hundred bags, we could spend the remainder of the time relaxing. The satisfaction of finishing the work by twelve, and then eating lunch and relaxing the rest of the day, is something that can only be appreciated by someone who has experienced it. I became the champion in doing that work, so everyone wanted to follow me.
The value of food
Even now, when I am hungry, my mind stirs with the thought of how precious even one grain of rice is. You have to be able to feel how a single grain stimulates your nerves and appreciate its infinite value.
Although I was hungry, yearning for food, I tried to forget that and yearn for God more instead, to the point of shedding tears. Rice is good, but even barley or wheat is adequate, or oats. I was more grateful to eat that than to have a king’s feast. I am the king in terms of appreciating the taste of rice.
During the years I was eating salty soup, though, I led a life of expressing gratitude to God in tears. While eating meals of barley, I thought of the hunger my ancestors experienced. I imagined I was eating the fruit of my ancestors’ hard work. Even though I knew God’s will and had to preserve God’s dignity, I did not leave any residue. I ate it all.
In prison, your sense of smell becomes very keen. Not even a dog’s sense of smell can compare to it. You can tell when someone is cooking beef broth a couple of miles away.
Prison is the best place in the world to learn the value of food. You become so hungry that a single grain of rice seems several times larger than the earth.
Starvation diet
You received about 1.7 small bowls of rice a day, no side dishes, and salt water for soup. You worked eight hard hours on that food. The meal was so meager that you could finish it in three bites.
The soup was radish leaves and salt in water—that was all. It was like the expression “water that a pig had walked through.” Occasionally, the soup was so salty you couldn’t finish it. Nevertheless, even on your deathbed, you would rather not give up the soup.
If someone didn’t work, he’d get only half a ration of rice. Getting only that half-sized lump would make you feel so miserable. Because of the food, people on the brink of death still went out and worked.
Unconsciously, you’d pour the rice into your mouth as soon as you received it. You wouldn’t realize you’d eaten any food. When you saw other people getting their bowl of rice, you’d realize your bowl is empty.
Often, people would fight with the person next to them, saying, You ate my food! Some people died from suffocation when the rice they’d taken in all at once obstructed their breathing.
When a man died without finishing his rice, other men fought for the food still in his mouth. Without their being consciously aware, men’s chopsticks would stray toward their neighbor’s bowl.
You can’t imagine how horrible it felt when you realized that the bowl belonged to the person next to you. Your saliva would become like chewing gum.
When a visitor brought soybean flour, you’d need it and make bread. If the flour fell on a stone, people would fight over the stone so they could eat the powder. Even liver oil mixed with water was delicious.
Uncooked soybeans also tasted so delicious. When you got one more grain of rice, that extra grain was like gold. If a grain of rice fell on the ground, no matter how dirty it was, men would fight over it.
The prison was like the valley of death. Over a year, 40 percent of the prisoners died…The communists’ policy was to work prisoners to death. Even mercilessness has limits, but that situation was far beyond such limits.
Even religious leaders lost their way
When I was in prison, I stayed with many religious leaders and prominent members of society. As it turned out, they’d been reduced to living for food. One well-known pastor said, “In that place of hunger, no matter how much I searched for God, He did not seem to be there.
Even his shadow did not appear. God may have given up, or He’s run away.” Some church ministers even became materialists while in prison.
A pastor famous in his region was sent to prison with his son-in-law. His son-in-law became sick with malaria, which was noted for causing a high fever at a particular time each day.
The pastor didn’t share the medicine he had in his possession, even with his son-in-law. Instead, he bartered it for someone else’s soybean flour. He was a pastor obsessed with food. He is still around, though I will not name him.
Three weeks on half rations
How could I survive in that kind of environment? I was determined to do so through spiritual power. I planted the firm conviction in my mind that I could live on half the meal I was given. From the next day, I started to share the other half with my fellow prisoners. I did that for three weeks.
I convinced myself that I could carry my workload even on half the scanty rations. After three weeks, I began eating the whole meal. I thought to myself that the second half had been given by God.
After training myself in this way, if any extra food came, I wouldn’t even touch it.
If, for instance, you were offered some soybean flour, how strongly would you desire to eat it?
But I wouldn’t touch it, or look at it; otherwise, that would have been the way of death. We must develop rules to limit what we eat, and so pioneer the path ahead.
The buckwheat conundrum
If I think about this during a meal, I can’t eat anymore. I remember the days from December 14 to 28, 1949. You know buckwheat. For that period, buckwheat that was only half-peeled was provided as a meal.
On the first day we ate it, our faces swelled up. We needed to eat it because we were hungry, but buckwheat is difficult to chew, so we just swallowed it. That’s how we became sick. I knew that.
To avoid the problem, I peeled off each buckwheat seed before I ate it. I can’t forget doing that. We could not throw such food away, but we ate everything. I thought about how we could eat this. After eating the buckwheat, we got diarrhea because we couldn’t digest it. This painful experience in prison was a most unforgettable one.
When I think about the experience of eating the buckwheat, I cannot complain at mealtimes. I think about what it was like in that situation. I cannot complain about a lack of side dishes. I am grateful for what is provided.
Sharing with others
When someone’s family or friends visited him in prison, they would bring something to eat. Even if his loving mother or wife came to see him, his eyes would go first to the food she had brought, rather than to her face. There was no sadder moment than if he discovered she hadn’t brought any soybean flour or anything else to eat.
When I was in Hungnam, I received soybean flour once a month. Since there were thirty people in a cell, there wasn’t much to share with each person. I gave each of them a spoonful on a piece of newspaper.
The days when I shared the soybean flour were like feast days. Even though it was precious to me, I could not keep it all for myself.
I also mixed the powder with water to make soybean flour cakes. I packed the cakes in newspaper and took them to work. Because I would sweat a lot until lunchtime, the cakes would become wet.
Still, when I shared them out, tears would trickle down a man’s face as he ate it. What a precious life it was! By sharing my food and supporting them, I became their friend, in place of their mothers and older brothers.
Clothing made with love
The prison cells weren’t heated rooms like a regular house. Morning and night, the cells were colder than outside during the winter because outside there was sunshine. Prisoners don’t need silk or satin clothes.
They would fight over who got a sack. Even a straw bag would be fine for them. You can appreciate the real value of clothes in prison.
I was always wearing the most ragged clothes. I gave all my good clothes to others and used a bamboo needle to patch up my worn-out ones. When family members brought me good clothes, I gave them to the most miserable prisoners.
I also made articles of clothing out of tent cloth and gave them to people who never had visitors. They liked them so much. Among the prisoners ,there were those who were going out in the strong wind in clothes so worn that their bottoms showed. It was to these men that I gave the clothes I made.
I also taught them a pattern for making pants. I folded the wrapping cloth and then cut out the pattern to make them. In this way, one could make ten pairs on a Sunday.
I wanted to feed others while I was starving. I wanted to clothe others while I was shivering in the cold. This is because I had to connect them with lines of love even in that environment. If I did that, when I pulled on those lines, I could catch them all.
The value of a single needle
Did they provide needles in the prison? Not; you had to provide them yourself. Hearing that somebody in some cell had a needle was the most sensational news.
You would negotiate with that man. Seeing a needle, I would wonder if anything could be more valuable than that.
When we needed to, we got pieces of broken glass. Even if we were punished later, we’d throw a hook to knock bits of glass from the roof of the plant. We used them to shave and to make chopsticks. I was teaching others how to do that.
You fold a piece of wire and trim it with a piece of glass. Then, you’d have a beautiful needle. My front tooth was damaged slightly while I was making a needle. How valuable would a needle made with such effort be?
Working with modesty
While I was in prison in Hungnam and working in the fertilizer factory, I always kept my trouser legs closed by tying them at the bottom with a strip of cloth, even during the hottest months.
I never let my shins show. I still had a sacred path to travel that required me to shed sweat and offer it to God, and I would rather not show my body to anyone when I was in the process of offering sincerity and dedication to God.
You all know about sulfuric acid. A steam-like mist rises from it. It was so hot that even in the winter months, everyone else would strip down to their underwear to work. But even working in the fertilizer factory, I always wore long trousers. I made sure my underwear was not visible.
I have always trained myself to be more modest than a woman protecting her virtue. I was committed to reaching the home I knew of in the original homeland and to establishing the tradition of that homeland. No matter how difficult life in prison might be, I could not let that stand in my way.
While in the satanic world, I had to offer my entire body to God and maintain the standard He desired. I had to maintain my chastity. Women are not the only ones who need to keep their chastity. Men do, too.
When I needed something, the spirit world would sometimes instruct other prisoners, for instance, ignorant thieves, robbers, or murderers, that in a certain prison cell there was an inmate with number 596, and they should bring a certain thing to that person.
When it became winter and the weather grew cold, and I had no clothes to put on, they were instructed to bring me clothes. And when I was hungry because I had nothing to eat, the spirit world sought people who had never met me and, telling them my name and my number, compelled them to bring me food. Such things happened, not once or twice but many times.
Prayer while incarcerated
Absolute love. Nothing else. The communists put me in prison and subjected me to all kinds of difficulties, but I didn’t stop loving God even for a moment. I kept absolute faith in God.
If I have made a promise, that promise is absolute. Then, if God gives an order, I understand what he is asking absolutely, no matter if it is difficult or easy. If I am in prison, I must behave like a devoted son; if I am a loyal subject to God, I must act like one.
Knowing that over time water dropping from the end of a gutter can pierce the rock, I thought, “If tears, drops of my love, could pierce through the rock of resentment in God’s heart….” You may not understand about weeping deeply and watching your tears fall.
I never prayed when I was in difficult situations. I wouldn’t talk for a week or even a month. The more difficult the situation was, the more I thought about how to mobilize the best of my wisdom and make my most sincere effort to create a way for God to work through me to overcome it.
I thought about how to use this kind of motivation in my heart to enable God, through His tears, to be relieved of His pain and grief. How to set off that heart-based explosion to demolish the enemy lines. This is how I thought when I prayed. I didn’t think, Woe is me, I have to get out of here.
There were members I never stopped praying for from breakfast time to when I slept during my almost three years in prison. Even if one of them left the fold, I kept praying for him or her.
Some of them came to me in spirit and reported to me in tears how they had left. Some would tell me how they had to leave me because their bodies were sick and weak. Seeing that pitiable situation, I inevitably felt compassion for them.
I had to pray for these people even after they had left me, until others appeared who could succeed them. For three years, I prayed for members three times a day.
Occasionally, I needed to pray about an issue for twelve hours or even twenty-four hours.
There was a convicted thief in the cell. One morning, I found him stealing. I scolded him and told him that what he was doing was wrong. But thereafter, I couldn’t pray. There is no he'll like that on earth.
How mortified would you feel when your only candle goes out in the darkest night? That is precisely how I felt then. After a week of hard effort, when your prayer begins to work again, you would not exchange that for anything under heaven.
You must hold fast to prayer. Prayer is a lifeline! You have to have something that neither God nor Satan can do for you. You have to have that power of life, vitality, which you alone can appreciate and preserve.
Next to the toilet
Thirty-six inmates were in the same cell I was in. It got so hot in the summer, but I chose to stay in the hottest and smelliest corner. What would I think about in that corner? I’d think about the coldest winter. The person who can be the master of winter can manage the summer and vice versa.
Even if you lay right next to where the prisoners defecate, you’d think that you were in a better place than Adam and Eve were. Adam and Eve went on the ground directly; at least I had a bowl to use.
When you slept next to the manure bucket, you couldn’t avoid getting an excrement shower once in a while, especially when people had to rush. Because you were right there, you got covered with the stuff¡¦. But what could you do? Nevertheless, I would think, “This is good. Isn’t this a good opportunity from which to begin to master the future of humankind?”
The prison captain, who took care of the prisoners’ eating and living conditions, would often ask, “Are you thankful to the leader, Father Kim Il-sung, who loves us and feeds us every day?” The inmates would say yes.
There were reflection meetings, which were a time for self-condemnation. Young people in the Communist Party were usually placed in the front. They would form the security team, which kept an eye on all the administrators.
They would give lectures on communism, and prisoners would be asked to write self-reflections, which were later compiled into a book. Those who wrote good essays were called to the front and had their essays read aloud.
One of the most difficult aspects of prison life was writing reflections. I never wrote even one. I always submitted blank paper, but that wasn’t a problem as long as I reached my daily work quota. Therefore, I became a model worker.
There was no other way to survive there. I know North Korea better than anyone else does. I studied the North Korean system well while I was in their prison. So I know how the fundamentals of communism work.
Gaining mastery over the physical self
Even under the direst circumstances, we are responsible to serve and attend to God. That is to say, the road to heaven should shine even if you are in hell. In prison, they provided only a third of a cup of water to drink at night.
That was the reason. Instead of drinking it, I wet a cloth with it and cleaned my body. I risked punishment if I was caught. I would get up ten to fifteen minutes earlier than others in the cell to take that cold bath.
One should also exercise. You have to maintain your stamina. I have an exercise program that I designed. It’s very effective.
I always prayed to sanctify a place when I sat down or got up in order not to be made dirty. Even while sleeping alone, I didn’t spread out my arms and legs. God is above you. There is even etiquette for sleeping.
We had some leisure time on Saturdays and Sundays. You could take a nap after a meal. For three years, I didn’t take a nap even once, which is why those in the prison would say they’d never seen me sleeping. When you are very sleepy, your eyesight dims, and your eyes become exhausted. However, once you decide, you must keep it.
After going through that kind of training process, you feel God’s helping hand as soon as you lie down. When you are so tired that you fall asleep without even changing clothes, do you think you will be able to open your eyes when going to the toilet?
It is difficult to go to the restroom because it is so dark, but you can see the path. Your hand becomes a flashlight; there is such a way. You have to connect with such a realm.
Longing and gratitude
One cannot feel how precious liberation is without having gone to prison. To those sentenced to life imprisonment, freedom had infinite value.
In prison, hearing that you had a visitor was the most wonderful news. It was the same for me. Prisoners missed being able to share with someone heart-to-heart. When given that chance, how happy the prisoners would become! You can’t ever imagine, even in your dreams, that you would yearn for such a thing.
When you see the sunlight, it looks like a string of candy. Or, should we call it a string of honey? Anyway, it is good. People in prisons can tell you in genuine terms about the sun because it is they who like the sun the most.
People who understand time might respond emotionally to the changing seasons or the falling snow. When I was in a grievous position, receiving persecution, having lost my country, and being chased out of my home, you can’t imagine how much I longed to hear familiar Korean folk songs.
When summer came, I envied insects who were outside making sounds. A prisoner even envies a fly, which can fly freely in and out of the barred window. You would be envious of them. Why did God make me follow this path? He wanted me to understand how such a person feels. I was grateful for this.
I had many kinds of friends—fleas, bed bugs, mosquitoes, and houseflies. We caught them and made them run around. Our conversations with them would probably fill a couple of hundred volumes.
Guards and cellmates
Even when I was sent to prison, I thought it was fortunate to have archangels with whips watching over me so that I didn’t go astray. I felt thankful toward the prison guards. I considered them to be archangels with clubs, preventing me from doing bad things, unlike the archangel who led Adam and Eve to fall.
Thirty to thirty-five people stayed in a small room. Among that group were all types of criminals, including murderers. You rub shoulders with those people in the cell. While sleeping, you sometimes hold them.
You do all kinds of things together. They step on you on the way to the toilet bowl at night, or they trip and fall on you. I could tell you all kinds of anecdotes. There were no class divisions; everyone was equal.
Prisoners sometimes defecated in the bucket while you were eating right next to it. Even so, you had to eat and drink without complaining. You would go out to work holding hands.
If I were sent to prison, I could make the inmates look up to me within three days. I understand that world so well. It is like society on a small scale. I understood the prisoners’ backgrounds well.
So I took care of and supported those folk, crying with them, feeling sympathy for them, dealing with them as if they were my family. We need such training.
Greeting with the eyes alone
The prison consisted of six blocks, all interconnected. Other inmates might want to meet me, even though we were under the strict, watchful eyes of the prison guards. Just to meet me, some inmates would stealthily crawl beneath the guards’ line of sight.
In the morning, when we were out of our cells in the narrow corridors, we would stand in four lines. It was a narrow corridor, but they would make their way to me, wink, and give me a quick embrace. This made a deep impression on me.
A guard would hit, with his rifle butt, anyone discovered doing this and send him to an isolation cell for one to three weeks. These people would make plans to escape.
Those discovered for a third time planning to escape would be punished with death. Despite that, they would still try to meet and greet me because that would be the most glorious part of their day. They played that kind of game.
This went on for several months. I began to think it might cause a problem, and I would break out in a cold sweat. Occasionally, they would greet me lying down flat. You could not know the taste of such tragedy, pitifulness, unless you experienced it.
You surely cannot grasp the deep communication of the heart made through just our eyes unless you have experienced it. Even if you studied volumes of encyclopedias, you still wouldn’t know.
Occasionally, I felt God Himself smile, thinking, How wonderful! When he saw the beauty of these relationships.
Compassion for inmates sentenced to death
Prison life was the best training ground for me. It was a training ground that challenged me to feel true love for people, to truly love my enemy, and to rub noses and share breath with inmates who’d been sentenced to death.
I slept beside them; we used each other’s arms as pillows. At times, one would wake up at two or three in the morning from a dream. Then he’d inhale deeply. You don’t know how deep the attachment to life is.
On many occasions, I witnessed the pitiful sight of a man calling out his name, his face pale. He would sigh deeply, his face showing indescribable misery. He didn’t know if that would be the last thing he did.
Prisoners always thought, If I could just have the chance to do it over again, things would turn out differently.
For those under sentence of death, nothing would be impossible. If one could save his life by walking through the whole city of Seoul with a cup of water balanced on his forehead, he would do it.
I realized that while in prison, I needed to be able to shed more tears for the people I comforted than a father would when leaving his child. Unless I could do that, I couldn’t take responsibility for restoration.
Only with this kind of heart could I move these people. When I held the hands of these men, I wanted to comfort them. I would explain to them that this life isn’t all that there is, but that our eternal life sprouts from our life on earth.
My mother’s visits
My mother traveled hundreds of miles to visit me in prison. When she came, however, I commanded her sternly. Shyly, she mumbled, “I am your mother.” She stood there with quivering lips, wiping away her tears with her hands. I cannot put this out of my memory.
I reproached her, saying, “What is this? Before I am your son, I am a son of Korea, a son of the world, and a son of heaven and earth. You must understand that, based on having loved those, I must listen to and love my mother. I am not a son of a small-minded person, please show the proper attitude of a mother who has such a son.”
To go to Hamhung, one had to come down to Yongsan [in Seoul] and take the train on the Gyungwon line. There wasn’t any other way. But to travel to Seoul on the Gyung-ui line and change to the Gyungwon line.
To get to Hamhung was an extremely difficult journey that took about twenty hours. To see her son, whom she couldn’t forget, in a communist prison camp, my mother borrowed handfuls of rice from distant relatives, roasted it and made flour, and braved the long journey.
She was devastated when her son reproached her. In the visiting area, he dipped his hand into the rice and distributed it among the inmates. I even shared out the clothes she brought, such as the silk trousers I had worn at my wedding ceremony. I always wore worn-out prison clothes, and my skin was exposed. Even the underwear she’d brought was distributed.
My mother sobbed bitterly. She was devastated and at a loss for words. When she returned to Elder Moon Yong-gi’s house, she cried. I’m fully aware of this.
Feeling in debt to others
During my time in Hungnam, some men became my followers. Some of them would hide packets of rice powder in smelly holes or gaps where they would be unlikely to be discovered and would share them with me later. Those meals left me with more unforgettable memories than luxurious banquets would.
Some inmates would signal me with their eyes from around the corner of the prison toilet. They would say, I felt sorry about eating this alone, so I have brought you some. Teacher, you surely know that I want to share this with you at lunchtime, don’t you?
Moving experiences of sharing rice powder brought tears to my eyes and left such a deep impression on me that I have never forgotten them. On the morning of my birthday, a person from Pyongyang who knew me came up to me and gave me a bowl of rice powder he had kept. I will remember this as long as I live.
I have never forgotten, even once, the experiences I’ve had, or when and in which prison they took place. I have to reciprocate to remove this debt from my life. If you think in this way, no debts will remain.
Even if the person who had done me a kindness were no longer here, I would establish a greater condition and repay the debt through another person. When I die, I would rather not carry any debts into my grave. This is my philosophy and outlook on life.
Survival required a public mindset
I had to survive it, certainly. To survive, I had to go through a course in which I was willing to die. We did hard, forced labor, yet I became the prison’s model worker. That was the secret of my survival.
There were not just dozens of workers; rather, there were close to 1,000 workers there. Even from among that number, our jailors chose me as the worker with the best results. Do you think that was easy to accomplish? That is how I survived. By taking this kind of path, I was able to work toward the fulfillment of the Will.
Where is the leader who will overcome the obstacles of restoration, filled with bitter sorrow? I took responsibility to digest everything—the sorrows of the people, God’s bitter grief resulting from the failures of world Christianity, and all related difficulties.
As God’s co-worker, I stood on His side and recreated my path. I organized the ideal Christian cultural sphere that could resonate with my mission from God.
Honored as a model prisoner
I have never failed to accomplish my responsibility. When I was in prison, I received special treatment from the head of the prison. He never said anything to me, but he watched me with an expression of admiration.
I made a science out of how to tie a bag, carry it, and load it onto the train. I designed the most efficient method to accomplish these tasks. Therefore, when I worked, I did not have to think about what I was doing, but was free to think of other things.
I was making plans for the future, thinking about the nation and the world. While I formulated such plans, I often lost track of time, and the working hours flew by. Consequently, even though I was sweating as much as the others, I did not feel exhausted.
Working in this way was mentally empowering. Every time they gave out the awards, I received the award for being the model worker. I was the champion laborer at the fertilizer factory in Hungnam. For that reason, all the prisoners followed me around.
Every morning, the guards organized us into teams for work. We were not allowed to work with the same people every day, we could not plan an escape. So, when the time came to organize teams, if, for instance, I had gone to the toilet, others waited for me to come back and then lined up behind me. In this situation, all the best workers ended up joining my team, and I became their leader.
If a person can’t be a savior in prison, he would be a fraud if he called himself a savior in a time of tranquility. I know that one man who was in Hungnam has written a book in which he calls me “the saint of the prison.”
Prison is not something I fear. No matter how merciless the beatings may have been, or how harsh the environment, it could not conquer the heart that is centered on love.
It could not break the heart that called out to God, to the Father, and sought to live for His sake. Based on that energy, I was able to lay a foundation for the solid liberation of the vertical dimension.
Witnessing through spiritual phenomena
In those difficult prison conditions, even though I asked God not to help me, He was always there. Under challenging circumstances, a prepared environment existed. Of course, a lot depended on my resolve, but I recognized that God had prepared the environment for me.
In the depths of the prison was God’s infinite comfort. In the silence deep at night or even in the desperation of what might be my final breath, God always extended His hand to me. In the intensity of all this, God’s guidance was always there. To put it briefly, because of this, some viewed me with suspicion. In the most difficult and serious place, I can meet God. That is the most hidden and secret place.
While in prison, I acknowledged the faithlessness of Jesus’ disciples. With the help of those in the spiritual world, I managed to witness twelve disciples, and through that, I could initiate a new future.
The spirit world is the archangelic realm. Because the archangel didn’t accomplish his mission, Adam couldn’t attain the glorious realm and establish the proper relationship, so those in the spirit world had no alternative other than to help me.
At the time of Elijah, God sent crows to bring Elijah food, but to me, God sent people.
My prison number was 596, which has a similar sound [in Korean] to the word “mistreated.” Someone’s ancestor would appear in a dream, instructing him not to eat the rice powder he had received but to give it to prisoner 596 in such and such a room.
At first, the prisoner would refuse to follow the order. After a second, and a third dream, the ancestor would grab him by the neck and demand, Will you do it or not? The prisoner would have no choice.
Through phenomena of that kind, I gained several disciples. If I had spoken, I would have convinced more people. Some of you may know that several secret disciples, such as Park Chung-hwa and Kim Won-duk, came to me through heavenly guidance.
They were people who would do anything I asked. They would place their lives on the line. If I had said, Let’s break out of here, they were the kind of people who would have tried.
Restoration of the Christian foundation
When Jesus was made to walk the path of death, the people and even his three beloved disciples betrayed him. That is why, according to the principle of restoration through indemnity, when I was in the labor camp, I had to restore the number 12 through indemnity—the same number as the 12 disciples that Jesus had lost.
Since I was in such a position, even though I did not witness at all while I was in the Hungnam labor camp, people in the spirit world that belonged to the realm of the Second Israel witnessed to 12 inmates so that they would follow me and fulfill that number.
Such was the historical connection I experienced. Even while the communists had me under the strictest surveillance in prison, God took responsibility to secretly organize people who united in heart with me. All this was unknown to anyone else. While there, I could not witness openly. Yet, even when I stayed silent, the spirit world witnessed to people for me.
I spent two years and eight months in Pyongyang Prison and Hungnam Prison in North Korea. This corresponded to the three years of Jesus’ public life. While there, I was able to restore more than 12 people. By doing so, I restored all the conditions that Jesus had lost.
Even though most of them did not follow me to the end, when I was freed from prison, I gave other people their positions. Since I had completed all that I had planned to do, Heaven directed the United States, the archangel nation, and UN troops to attack North Korea to liberate me.
That was how I came out of prison. Four people continued to follow me at the time. The UN troops protected South Korea. This set a global condition for heavenly fortune to come back to the democratic world, and the work of restoring Christianity could be launched.
Sun Myung Moon