
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


When Greenlander Helene Thiesen was just seven, two Danish men came to take her away.
In 1951, Greenland native Helene Thiesen was just seven years old when two Danish men knocked at the family home. That moment would shape the rest of her life. These men, acting at the invitation of the Danish colonial government were rounding up the brightest Inuit children and sending them to live in Denmark to be re-educated as model Danish citizens or ‘little Danes’. Helene suffered terribly from being separated from her mother and siblings and it would take her many decades to discover the horrible truth behind it all: she was part of an experiment. Of the 22 children that were taken, Helene is now one of the few survivors.
Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
By BBC World Service4.7
469469 ratings
When Greenlander Helene Thiesen was just seven, two Danish men came to take her away.
In 1951, Greenland native Helene Thiesen was just seven years old when two Danish men knocked at the family home. That moment would shape the rest of her life. These men, acting at the invitation of the Danish colonial government were rounding up the brightest Inuit children and sending them to live in Denmark to be re-educated as model Danish citizens or ‘little Danes’. Helene suffered terribly from being separated from her mother and siblings and it would take her many decades to discover the horrible truth behind it all: she was part of an experiment. Of the 22 children that were taken, Helene is now one of the few survivors.
Presenter: Mobeen Azhar

7,639 Listeners

375 Listeners

1,046 Listeners

379 Listeners

5,520 Listeners

1,799 Listeners

964 Listeners

584 Listeners

1,763 Listeners

1,049 Listeners

1,979 Listeners

342 Listeners

40 Listeners

731 Listeners

849 Listeners

238 Listeners

3,177 Listeners

1,003 Listeners

159 Listeners

1,002 Listeners

95 Listeners

56 Listeners

773 Listeners