Mick Hartley

Here's an update on the story of Oh Kil-nam, the South Korean who made the decision to move to North Korea in 1985 with his reluctant wife and two young daughters. They'd been living in Germany, where Oh was studying for a doctorate. As a young radical he was tempted by the prospect of a socialist alternative to the right-wing authoritarianism of the then South Korean government, but as soon as they arrived he realised the true horror of his mistake, and defected at the first opportunity when he was sent back to Germany to recruit more South Koreans. It was at his wife's insistence:

"She hit me in the face when I said I would come back with some South Koreans," Oh said. "She said I could not have that on my conscience. She told me to leave North Korea and never come back. She told me to think of her and our daughters as being dead from a car accident."

The last he heard, after years of silence, was that they were still alive, having spent the last 25 years in the North Korean camps. Now Oh is back in Germany, campaigning:

The fight to save ‘Daughter of Tongyeong’ Shin Suk Ja and her two daughters arrives in Europe today as Dr. Oh Gil Nam begins a visit to Germany, the country where he and his family last lived in freedom in the 1980s, immediately prior to their disastrous decision to move to North Korea.Oh is accompanied by Free NK Gulag head Kim Tae Jin as representative of the International Coalition to Stop Crimes against Humanity in North Korea.

Speaking before their departure this lunchtime, Kim told The Daily NK, “Dr. Oh is very excited because he is hopeful that he will open the way to requesting the assistance of the current German government and related parties.”

“The domestic feeling regarding mother-of-two Shin Suk Ja is heating up, and so this visit to Germany is mainly focused on spreading news of this problem in the international community,” Kim added.

Dr. Oh and Kim are set to spend 5 days in the country, appearing at various events and hosting meetings to bring pressure to bear on North Korea to both return Shin and her daughters to South Korea and shut down its political prison camp system.

A hopeless quest, perhaps, but an extraordinary man…