Norbert Vollertsen, Date of Birth, Place of Birth
TweetNorbert Vollertsen
German human rights activist
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
About Norbert Vollertsen
- Norbert Vollertsen (born 10 February 1958 in Düsseldorf) 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.
- In recognition of his contribution, Vollertsen received the official Democratic People's Republic 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.
- He was also given a pass that allowed him to travel through the country freely, which was very unusual for a foreigner.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 political prisons in North Korea that enforced the flow of wealth from the citizenry to the Pyongyang-based Korean People's Army and the Workers' Party of Korea which was then headed by Kim Jong-il.
- Using smuggled cameras, he obtained photos and films of flagrant, large-scale human rights violations in North Korea.
- In particular, mass starvation was used as a tool of political control.
- He began collecting evidence of abuses, which he passed to a visiting United States Congress man, an act for which he was put under surveillance.
- Despite this Vollertsen continued to speak out against the North Korean government, which soon lost patience and forced him to leave North Korea in January 2001.
- Soon after returning home, he gave an interview about his experiences in North Korea, which the North Korean government denounced.The North Korean government has portrayed him as a dishonest media manipulator who is 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.In September 2006, Vollertsen claimed that he had been attacked by a gang and had been run over by a taxi while in Seoul prior to giving a speech on North Korea.He has written the book Inside North Korea: Diary of a Mad Place, published in 2004.
- It was earlier translated into Japanese by Midori Segi and published in Japan in 2001.
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