NOTE TO READERS (April 2015):

In January 2015, Shin Dong-hyuk, a North Korean defector, acknowledged that he changed parts of his life story that he has told in the past. Click here for article. At that time, Blaine Harden, a former Washington Post reporter who wrote a book based on interviews with Mr. Shin in 2012, said he was reviewing the facts published in the book, “Escape From Camp 14,” upon which the essay below was based.

In...