Greenland’s Stolen Indigenous Children

Book excerpt: In this book, author Helene Thiesen recounts her experience of being removed from her family in Greenland as a young Inuk child, to be ‘re-educated’ in Denmark and an orphanage in Greenland. The practice of forcible assimilation of Indigenous children into colonial societies through ‘education’ has echoes in North America and Australasia, and the painful legacy of these practices remains under-acknowledged. In this poignant book, Helene recounts in detail the process of being taken from her family in 1951, aged seven, along with twenty-one other children, in the attempt to re-make them into ‘model Danish citizens’, in a social ‘experiment’ led by the Danish government and Save the Children Denmark. When the children returned to Greenland a year and a half later, they were sent to live in a Danish Red Cross orphanage, where they were forbidden to speak their native languages, and were compelled to adopt Danish language, culture and customs. With a detailed introductory analysis from Dr Stephen James Minton, who also provides the translation, Helene’s account serves as a compelling and powerful testimony of a devastating colonial experiment. Richly illustrated with forty photos to help to situate the reader, this book provides an invaluable case study for researchers and students in the fields of Indigenous Studies, Critical Pedagogy and Education, Psychology, European History, and Cultural Studies.