Little Danes experiment

The little Danes experiment, or the experiment (Danish: eksperimentet), was a 1951 Danish operation. The idea was to re-educate Inuit children. Twenty-two Greenlandic Inuit children (known as "experiment children"; Danish: eksperimentbørn) were sent to Danish foster families in an attempt to re-educate them as "little Danes". While the children were all supposed to be orphans, most were not. Six children were adopted while they were in Denmark. Sixteen returned to Greenland. They were put in Danish-speaking orphanages and never lived with their families again. Half of the children had mental health problems. Half of them died when they were young adults. The government of Denmark officially apologized in 2020, after several years of demands from Greenlandic officials. In 2020. six of the participating children were still alive. The had sued the Danish state for compensation. They each received 250.000 Danish Crowns, and a personal face-to-face apology from the Prime Minister.

Helene Thiesen at her second foster family in Denmark

Related pages

• Kinder der Landstrasse - a similar event in Switzerland, about 30 years earlier