In 1960, Harry Wu began a 19-year incarceration in Chinese labor camps, after being labeled by the government as a counter-revolutionary rightist. Today, the 74-year-old Virginia resident aims to make those camps — called laogai, or “reform through labor” — as infamous as the Russian gulags or the Nazi concentration camps. Wu is the executive director of the Laogai Research Foundation, which runs the newly redesigned Laogai Museum in Dupont Circle. He spoke with The Washington Examiner about his inhuman experience and his unshakable God. Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?
As a boy, I went to a school operated by the Roman Catholic Church. There was an Italian priest there, and he was very kind to me. We were like father and son. There, I was baptized as a Catholic — the first person in my family, in my whole family’s history, to be a Catholic. By 1949, the Communist Party occupied the whole country. The priest was deported; the whole church was shut down. There was no religious activity. As a teen and a university student, I wasn’t really involved with religion — I didn’t really care about it. But still, this was my religion.
What keeps you returning to the Catholic Church?
In 1961, my second year in the prison camp, I was facing death. I weighed 80 pounds, and every day some people moved out — dead — and some people moved in. I kneeled in my cot and said, “My God, if you want to punish me, if I’m bad, if I deserve it, I will take it. But the rest of the people here, I don’t think all of them are bad. You said you’re universal, show your power, save people, tell the truth. Please show me.”
Another time, I watched the prisoner in the cot next to me die of starvation. For a second time, I prayed to my God. I was angry — I said, “My God, are you universal? Why did you let him go away? Where are you? What are you doing?” After that, I never prayed again. Never ever.
In 1985, I came to the United States. The first book I bought was “Les Miserables,” about an ex-prisoner. I walked around and I saw the Catholic churches in San Francisco. I wanted to walk in, then I didn’t want to, but eventually, I walked in. It felt very strange. I still ask myself, how did I survive? I still feel that God is with me all the time. That’s my religious life.
How did you maintain a sense of reality amid the oppression of the labor camps?
At that time, I didn’t think about it. I just wanted to survive. I worked 12-hour shifts in the coal mines and the chemical factories — noon to midnight. Finding food became the major job. To this day I can teach you how to catch a frog, and how to eat a snake. What is right, what is wrong, what is true or false — we didn’t think about that. We had no pencils, no newspapers — not even from the Communist Party, no news from outside. We were totally blocked. The goal of the camps is to reform you into a death, where the brain is nothing.
As we celebrate Independence Day weekend, what American values are most precious to you? And what Chinese values do you cling to, despite your experiences?
I think that Americans really understand freedom of speech and association — even in prison, you can disagree with the president, you can be a Christian, you can say what you want to say. And I like that the media values the facts, and the truth. But even so, sometimes I feel that whatever the major media outlets are saying, there’s a shadow there from businesses and enterprises. They’ll pick up some news, drop some news, report some special reports and drop others because of outside influences.
As to Chinese values, that question is simple. American and Chinese values are exactly the same. Peace, freedom, democracy — everyone is looking for those. Some Chinese may say differently — that they’re talking about nationalism, and family values. But basically, everyone is the same.
At your core, what is one of your defining beliefs?
I believe in man, just as a man. It’s like Hemingway said in “The Old Man and the Sea”: A man cannot be defeated.
– Leah Fabel
