PYONGYANG STUDENT TRAGEDY
OTTO WARMBIER, the US college student who was detained in North Korea for 15 months, died on Monday.
The totalitarian regime claimed the 22-year-old had been in a coma for a year after contracting botulism, but his family insist he was subjected to “awful torturous mistreatment”.
Mr Warmbier, who was active at the Hillel at the University of Virginia and cared deeply about the Jewish community according to its rabbi, had been sentenced to 15 years of hard labour for stealing a propaganda poster.
But North Korea returned him to America last week on “humanitarian grounds” after it emerged that he was severely ill.
A statement released by the family on Monday read: “Surrounded by his loving family, Otto died today at 2.20pm.”
The economics student from Cincinnati, Ohio, was on a student tour of North Korea last year when he was arrested and sentenced.
His family said that when he returned to America he had been “unable to speak, unable to see… The awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today.”
Rabbi Jake Rubin, the University of Virginia’s Hillel director, told JTA in an email that Mr Warmbier got involved with the campus’s Jewish community after a Birthright trip to Israel in 2014.
Birthright offers free trips to individuals who identify as Jewish, have at least one Jewish birth parent or have completed Jewish conversion.
Rabbi Rubin did not answer a question about Mr Warmbier’s Jewish background, but described him as “a beloved member of our Hillel community.
“He was a regular at Bagels on Lawn, celebrated Shabbat and holidays at Hillel, and even led a Seder for other students that focused on issues of environmentalism and sustainability,” the rabbi wrote.
“In the simplest interactions, Otto always found something of interest and would make you smile. At every stop on Birthright he would try some kind of new food, strike up a conversation with someone new, or find some unique thing to bargain for. He loved life and it was infectious.
Rabbi Rubin added: “He was always interested in learning more about the world and the people around him. He put everyone at ease with his humour and genuine interest for others.”
Writing about his trip to the Western Wall in 2014, Mr Warmbier said: “I can’t speak for everyone, but for me the Western Wall was an incredible experience for me… Each year at Chanucah, my family finishes the prayer by saying, ‘next year in Jerusalem’. For me, it was this year in Jerusalem. And this day at the Western Wall.”