A family and a conscience, destroyed by North Korea's cruelty

Trip to North Korea leads to a lifetime of regret

Oh Kil-nam moved to North Korea in 1985 after he was promised medical care for his wife's condition. Instead, they were taken to an indoctrination camp. Oh was later granted political asylum on a trip to Germany, but has not seen his wife or daughters since.

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 22, 2010

SEOUL -- "I am fool."

That self-assessment comes from Oh Kil-nam, a South Korean economist who moved to North Korea a quarter-century ago, dragging along his unhappy wife and two teenage daughters. He then defected to the West, leaving his family stranded in a country his wife had called "a living hell."

Oh lives alone now in a fusty, computer-filled apartment here in the capital of South Korea. At 68, he is retired as a researcher for a government-funded think tank. He says he drinks too much rice wine and dwells too much on what might have been.

His wife and daughters -- if alive -- are believed to be prisoners in Camp No. 15, one of several sprawling political prisons in the mountains of North Korea.

Nineteen years ago, North Korean authorities, via unofficial intermediaries based in Germany, sent Oh letters that were written in his wife's hand, saying she and the girls were in the camp. There were pictures of them posing in the snow -- and a cassette tape with voices of his daughters begging to see their daddy.

(More here.)