In the middle of the last century, the Denmark and Greenland authorities started experiment. Intent, as always, were good: initially planned to give education and a family of 22 Greenland orphans, but everything went wrong.
What a cultural experiment
Until 1953, Greenland was the colony of Denmark, and in 1951 there was an idea to combine cultures of the two countries and see what it comes from it. Danish authorities wanted to take 20 Greenland orphans from orphanages and give them a good education. Children were to learn in bilingual schools, and after studying their homeland. "The Great Adventure of orphans" - this is how the Danish media Danish media presented.Children were taken from ornamental houses
Instead of orphans, children were taken from incomplete families, deprived them of relationships with relatives, and even otherwise they did not even know that they were involved in some experiment.
Children of the Greenland Experiment. Photo: Tjournal.ru.
They were placed in quarantine for 4 months
14 boys and 9 girls 4-9 years old settled in a remote "rest camp" Fedgarden - in fact it was not a camp, but a quarantine zone. This was told by one of the participants of the experiment:It was the first time a group of young children from Greenland arrived in Denmark. There were fears that we can have something contagious.Children forbidden to communicate with parents
All the kids fell into the foster families - the media told how little kids live wonderfully, but in fact, many had problems with adoptive parents. A year later, they had to return home, but some of them, in advance the original idea of the experiment, were officially adopted - according to Danish law it meant that they would no longer communicate with biological parents. They did not understand why this happened:
My receptional mother said that [other children] returned to their families, and I did not understand why I was not with my family.Other children actually returned to Greenland, but not home, but in the shelter.
Shelter in Greenland. Photo: Tjournal.ru.
They forgot their native language
Even if they were allowed to communicate with their parents, they could no longer - for the year, children have forgotten their native language, because in the shelter they spoke only on Danish. It was forbidden to speak Greenlandic.I could not understand what she was saying. Not a word. I thought: "It's terrible. I can no longer talk to my mother. " We talked in two different languages.They felt out of others everywhere
For the Danes, they were "landmark" - the queen came to them, they were sent gifts and donations. For Greenland, they were also strangers, because they did not know any native language nor the culture of their country. This is what one of the participants of the experiment:
I felt that I had no personality. I was Greenland, Danish or who? I always felt Bastardom.The lives of these children were not very successful - in adulthood, many of them were abused by alcohol and drugs and made small crimes. None of them could establish relationships with biological parents.
Queen of Denmark with children from Greenland. Photo: Tjournal.ru.
Denmark's authorities apologized 70 years later
When in 2010, the former pupils of the orphanage found out that their life went awry because of some kind of experiment of the authorities, they demanded public apologies. And only in 2020, the Prime Minister of Denmark first brought official apologies, recognizing them victims, and the experiment is unsuccessful.