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Outlook: I didn’t know I was part of an experiment

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Helene Thiesen

16/02/2023 GMT

I didn’t know I was part of an experiment

BBC World Service - Outlook, I didn’t know I was part of an experiment

When Greenlander Helene Thiesen was just seven, two Danish men came to take her away

When Greenlander Helene Thiesen was seven she was sent to live in Denmark against her will. It would be years before she learnt the harrowing truth behind why she was taken.

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.

Dr Susanna Blackwell is a Swedish-American biologist and part of a team investigating the effects of man-made sounds on narhwals, long-tusked whales that swim the Arctic’s icy seas. Through some cleverly-placed recording equipment she shares the rare joys of riding with these 'unicorns of the sea'. This was first broadcast in 2018.

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producer: Edgar Maddicott
Translator: Alette Rye Scales
Voice: Julia Holden

(Photo: Helene Thiesen. Credit: BBC)

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