Norbert Vollertsen

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Norbert Vollertsen (born 10 February 1958 in Dusseldorf) is a German doctor and human rights activist.

Vollertsen practiced medicine in North Korea from 1999 to 2001 with the Cap Anamur Committee, a non-governmental cooperation organization. In August 1999, he and Francois Large, another aid worker, donated their skin to Pak Jong Thae, a tractor factory worker in Haeju, South Hwanghae, who had suffered burns over three-quarters of his body and underwent three skin grafting operations.^[1] In recognition for his contribution, Vollertsen received the official Democratic People of Korea's Friendship Medal for his humanitarian assistance later that same month, in a ceremony attended by Supreme People's Assembly vice-president Yang Hyong Sop.^[2] He was also given a pass that allowed him to travel the country freely, which was very unusual for a foreigner.^[3]

As he traveled in his capacity as an emergency physician, tending to the illnesses and injuries of common North Koreans in the countryside, he struggled with a nearly non-existent healthcare system, abject poverty and growing proof of a network of prison camps and penitentiaries that enforced the flow of wealth from the citizenry to the Pyongyang-based military and labor party headed by Kim Jong Il. Using smuggled cameras, he obtained photos and films of flagrant, large-scale human-rights abuses, which touched his conscience as a German whose own people committed atrocities in the decades before his birth. In particular, mass starvation was used as a tool of political control. He became convinced that the North Korean government was evil and began campaigning against it.^{[citation needed]} He began collecting evidence of abuses, which he passed to a visiting United States Congressman, an act for which he was forced to leave North Korea in January 2001. Soon after returning home, he gave an interview about his experiences there soon, which the North Korean government denounced.^[3]^[4]

The North Korean government has portrayed him as a dishonest media manipulator suffering from mental instability. His wife, reacting to his decision to stay in South Korea as an anti-Kim activist, divorced him and is raising their children with a partner. "My wife blamed me for not taking care of my family. She said my vision, my goals, my projects, were worth much more to me. And afterwards, I realised she was right. I do not want to sacrifice my family. But I know my wife and her partner are taking care of my children, and that they are safe and healthy. But the North Korean children are not", said Vollertsen in 2003.^[3]

In September 2006, Vollertsen claims to have been attacked by a gang and to have been run over by a taxi while in Seoul prior to giving a speech on North Korea.^[5]

He has written the book Inside North Korea: Diary of a Mad Place (ISBN 1893554872).