Chambumo Gyeong - 343. Torture and release
True Father was subjected to very cruel torture at the Daedong Detention Center. His captors inflicted extreme measures, such as not allowing him to sleep for one week and beating him mercilessly with a club. After 103 days, on November 21, 1946, True Father was released in a condition near death. His followers brought his body to a room, where he vomited so much blood that it filled a washbasin, and then he lapsed into a coma. His disciples discussed what they would do in case of his death. But miraculously, he recovered. After that, he moved to another meeting hall and continued to spread his teachings. 8 The communists inflicted on me the most severe torture, sleep deprivation. They did not let me sleep for an entire week. While suffering through that torment, I remember thinking, "Let s see who wins, you or me," and took it as a game. Normally, after suffering a week without sleep people divulge everything they know. But I was able to get some sleep because I had learned how to sleep with my eyes open. I studied how to do it. Even now when I feel sleepy, I use that method. Also, after I was beaten and felt extreme pain throughout my body, I learned how to exercise in order to lessen the pain and heal the bruises. Today, when I am tired or in pain, I use these same exercises. Even now, I manage my strenuous life while sleeping an average of one hour per day. (067-203, 1973/06/10) 9 When I was doing my pioneer mission in Pyongyang, I was visited by wives of many pastors and church elders. This led about 70 pastors to anonymously inform on me to the police, and I was imprisoned. Even agents from the Soviet Union interrogated and tortured me, because they suspected I was a spy from the South. They put me in a room with red walls and forced me to stay awake for a week. If a person is not allowed to sleep for even three days, that person will lose his mind. They placed me alone on a white cushion in a room enclosed by four red walls and for three days, then for one week, they would not let me sleep. I said to myself, "Do you think 1 will not be able to sleep?" So, I trained myself to sleep with my eyes open. That is why rumors arose that I was a shaman and a magician, and that I did miracles like those in the Bible. They assigned someone to watch me all the time. (486-299, 2005/02/09) 10 I am physically strong and agile. I could engage in any sport and was sure to be among the top three competitors in any athletic event. I am a man with that kind of capability. Yet in prison I was subjected to so many beatings. Twelve people surrounded me and beat me from every direction, north, south, east and west. I was subjected to all kinds of torture, but I received them without saying a word.
While they were torturing me, I endured, thinking, "Come on you guys, hit me!" When a man beat me with a club, I said to myself, "Come on and hit me!" I am not so gutless that I would ask them, "Please, spare me." When they tortured me by tying me up cross-legged, I thought, "You will break before I will." I was beaten in the face so much that half my teeth broke. In those suffering and humiliating conditions I shed sweat, I screamed, I bled, and I shed tears. Many others endured these things, but who could match the purpose for which I endured them? (214-094, 1991/02/01) |