Interesting article from WSJ on line about uncovering North Korea through Google Earth.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124295017403345489.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
At the event at Stanford that I wrote about, Mr. Shin used Google Earth to show us where Camp No. 14 was... as well as another camp near the northern border where a friend of his was held. It was eye opening to say the least. Made his story so much more real.
In the slideshow in the article above, there is one aerial picture of mass graves... of the victims of the "Arduous March." That's how North Korea refers to the famine that reportedly killed between 1-3 million people.
The only mass grave I have ever been to in person is the one in South Korea where my grandfather is supposedly buried. According to my aunts and uncles, he was killed during the Korean War as the North Korean forces killed all the prisoners as they retreated. Supposedly he was imprisoned because he was a community leader, had some money, and because he was a Christian. I'm not sure why he was imprisoned. My aunts and uncles and grandma said they just came and took him away.
The grave is HUGE. There is a list of names, at least 100 names long, engraved in Chinese characters on a marble stone to the right of the grave. The list contains the names that were on a "roster" that was found later... it was partially burned but my grandfather's name, along with the local church priest and other men who were arrested, were on it.
1-3 million is a number. But I imagine each mound in that picture to be like my grandfather's grave. And each person in that grave is a grandfather, a father, a grandmother, a mother, a son, a daughter, a sister, a brother, an aunt, an uncle, a friend, and a precious life that left this earth too soon.
-Mary
