Career
Vollertsen practiced medicine in North of 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. He was also given a pass that allowed him to travel 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 prison camps and penitentiaries that enforced the flow of wealth from the citizenry to the Pyongyang-based military and the labor party headed by Kim Jong Illinois
Using smuggled cameras, he obtained photos and films of flagrant, large-scale human-rights abuses. He became convinced that the North Korean government was evil and began campaigning against lieutenant
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 of Korea in January 2001.
The North Korean government has portrayed him as a dishonest media manipulator who is suffering from mental instability.
"My wife blamed me for not taking care of my family. She said my vision, my goals, my projects, were worth much more to medical And afterwards, I realised she was right.
I do not want to sacrifice my family.
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 of Korea.
He has written the book Inside North of Korea: Diary of a Mad Place, published in 2004. lieutenant was earlier translated into Japanese by Midori Segi and published in Japan in 2001.
