The Brutal Experiment

The Danish government took a group of Eskimo children who were taken from their homes in Greenland in order to make a real little Danish people. The goal was the modernization of the primitive Greenland. Confession of Helene Thyssen, who was part of a "program" for which she learned only after 52 years, is filled with pain and sorrow.

Helena Thyssen

Helena Thyssen still remembers that beautiful summer day in 1951 when the two Danes came to her house in Greenland, which was a colony of Denmark, and asked her mother if she would be willing to send her daughter to Denmark, writes the BBC.

At that time, the situation in Greenland was not great. Most of the population was living from fishing, tuberculosis was raging, and only a small percentage of the population spoke Danish. In order to modernize society, Danes devised inclement plan.

The Danish authorities had sent telegrams to local priests and officials of which have sought to find "intelligent children aged between six and 10 years."

Their plan was that with the help of a charitable organization "Save the Children Denmark", brought children into the Danish families where they should be molded as a small Danes.

Although initially no one wanted to give up children, finally the 21 families still agreed or were forced to take this step.

Helen's father died of tuberculosis three months before that, and the mother, who was left alone with three small children, eventually agreed and promised to return her daughter for six months.

21 children went on this road, and the majority of them were housed in one quarantined in Copenhagen. They were stationed there because there was a fear of suffering from something contagious.

Danish Queen

The arriving of the small Eskimos was so important thing, that Danish queen personally visited them.

The children were then sent to foster families across the country, and in December 1951 it was published a large journalistic article in which it said that the experiment was a complete success and that the children adapted to the new conditions of life, and that they learned the language.

Helena, who was in quarantine suffering from eczema, was placed in the medical family.

- I did not feel welcome in the family. I felt like a stranger. The mother had mental problems and all the time she lay in bed. I did not believe to adults because they sent me to Denmark. Whenever she asked me something, I was shaking my head because I did not want to talk to her - recalls Helena.

After several months, Helena was healed and she was switched with another family who, in comparison to the first, were wonderful.

The following year, 16 of the 22 small Eskimos, including Helena, were returned to Greenland.

When they returned in Nuuk, the children were happy to see their parents, but they soon realized that they had forgotten their mother tongue and that they can no longer communicate with each other. However, it was not the biggest shock that they experienced.

Children were separated from their parents and taken to an orphanage, although their parents lived in the same city. In the orphanage, of course, the continued to speak Danish, but many of them were never established a close relationship with their biological parents.