Eunhee Park: Surviving North Korea and reclaiming identity in the South
North Korea News Podcast by NK NewsShow Notes
Content warning: This episode contains discussion of sexual violence.
NK News Data Correspondent Anton Sokolin kicks off the podcast this week by discussing the long-running debate over the transfer of wartime operational control, or OPCON, from the U.S. to South Korea, following comments made by U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Xavier Brunson.
He also examines growing Russia-North Korea cooperation, including a new “friendship hospital” project near the Wonsan-Kalma resort, and what it may signal about the durability of their ties beyond the war in Ukraine.
In the second half of this podcast, North Korean refugee and author Eunhee Park discusses her new memoir “The Courage To Die: A North Korean Woman's Escape and Rebirth in Freedom,” which recounts her childhood in Wonsan, years living in a North Korean orphanage and her eventual escape to South Korea by way of China.
She also discusses the challenges of resettling in South Korea, including facing discrimination, loneliness and the burden of adapting to a free society, as well as how writing her memoir helped her process the trauma and reclaim her identity.
Eunhee Park is a North Korean refugee, public speaker and author. Her work shares a clear, first-person account of childhood in the North, escape and rebuilding a life abroad.
About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jacco Zwetsloot exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.
More from North Korea News Podcast by NK News
Editor’s note: This interview was recorded in July 2026. Some references to recent events and political developments reflect the situation at the time of recording and may differ from subsequent developments.
NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park joins the podcast this week to discuss his exclusive interview with Canada’s Chief of the Defense Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan on what North Korea is gaining from its military cooperation with Russia and how Canada could help South Korea prepare for emerging security threats.
Edward Goldring, senior lecturer in political science at the University of Melbourne and author of the new book “Purges: How Dictators Fight to Survive,” joins the podcast to discuss why authoritarian leaders remove senior officials and what those purges can reveal about political survival.
NK News Correspondent Joon Ha Park and Michael Bosack, former deputy secretary of the U.N. Command Military Armistice Commission, join the podcast this week to discuss the Sept. 21 landmine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), what investigators have established about the North Korean mine involved and why questions remain over how it ended up south of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL).
NK News Data Correspondent Anton Sokolin and Lead Correspondent Shreyas Reddy join the podcast this week to discuss Russia’s new ambassador to North Korea, Pyongyang’s latest cyber operations and the growing dispute between Seoul and Kyiv over two North Korean prisoners of war.