It was a crisp, clear afternoon in 2015 when I first met the man whom Médecins Sans Frontières workers called North Korea’s Oskar Schindler. That morning, Youngja Kim at the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights had whispered into the phone that I had to drop everything and head to a cafe outside the city. “The man is ready to meet you,” she said. I could hear urgency in her voice, as if she needed to get this information out before the line got cut off. “The man knows what you look like. He will come to you and tap you on the shoulder.”

“The man” was wanted by both the North Korean regime and China. Given the chance, North Korean spies would not