DALLAS (Tribune News Service) — Grace Kang remembers hearing screams coming from a room where her mother was being interrogated by the Chinese border patrol.

“I closed my eyes and covered my ears, angry and terrified of the soldiers with guns on their hips,” Kang recalled Monday.

Kang, her mother and grandmother were caught by Chinese border patrol officers while they were trying to flee North Korea to avoid starvation, she said. Kang was released by authorities and allowed to stay in China because of false identification her mother obtained. After living in China for several years without legal immigration status, she reunited with her family and in 2007 moved to South Korea.

“We refused to let death take us,” she said to a crowd of about 100 people at Southern Methodist University.

According to South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, more than 34,000 North Korean defectors entered South Korea as of December.

Bella Ha, 21, shared how she grew up indoctrinated by North Korean propaganda.

“When my mother suggested that I join her in China, where she had escaped to three years prior, I called her a traitor,” Ha said.

When Ha was 9 years old, her mother arranged for a broker to take her to China. Her father got her a new jacket and snow boots for the trip.

“I couldn’t have imagined that those moments together would be our last,” she said.

Six months after escaping to China in 2011, Ha came to South Korea with her mother. She recalled how she was able to sing songs and watch cartoons that weren’t about Kim regimes. Through movies, she learned about friendship, romance, heartbreak and hope.

“This was a world that was free,” Ha said. “This was the world the North Korean regime hadn’t wanted me to see.”

Lily Jo, 23, spoke about the lack of health care in North Korea. Her older sister had a life-threatening experience instead of what should have been a safe and simple procedure to treat appendicitis. She recalled how her “helplessness ached like an open wound.”

“Seeing my family in pain but being unable to provide them with what they need made me feel powerless,” Jo said. “I wanted to help the people I loved, but didn’t have the resources or the ability to do so.”

All three women are part of Liberty in North Korea’s advocacy fellow program. The international nonprofit helps North Korean refugees share their personal experiences and humanize people living under the current Kim Jong Un regime.

Jo, who attends Korea University, is the president of a North Korean human rights organization at her college in South Korea. Ha, a second-year student studying political science and diplomacy at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said she wants to go to law school and improve the legal system in South Korea. Kang is the CEO of “For Legacy,” a startup company that provides online memorial services for people who defected from North Korea.

Since early April, the trio has been traveling to different parts of the U.S. to share stories of escaping from North Korea at a young age. Before coming to Dallas, they spent time in Atlanta and Los Angeles. They will be going to Waco later this week.

This was the first time in the U.S. for all three women.

“I’m an only child,” Kang said in Korean during an interview with The Dallas Morning News conducted through an interpreter. “I feel like I found two lost sisters.”

Reliving their trauma hasn’t been easy, but the women said they recognize the importance of their perspectives.

Monday evening was the second time Liberty in North Korea held the “Path to Peace” event at SMU, said Jihoon Choi, who is a liaison for the organization. Choi organized the event for the first time last year, when he was a senior at SMU and president of the campus’ Liberty in North Korea chapter.

“I really saw that students and other Americans were really passionately listening to our stories,” Kang said.

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