A temporary exhibition on the “Armenian Genocide and Scandinavian response” opened at the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute today.
The Armenian Genocide had a major impact on the world from the moment the information about the Young Turks campaign of the destruction reached foreign offices and appeared on the front pages of newspapers in 1915. The well-documented catastrophic events in the Ottoman Empire (today’s Turkey) influenced the societies from North America to Japan- from political establishments to grass-roots and individual intellectuals, from missionaries to humanitarians - thus making the history and the memory of the Armenian Genocide an inseparable part of our common heritage. Scandinavia was no exception. Individuals, organizations, and governments in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark reacted in a variety of ways to the ongoing crisis in Armenia. Scandinavia was deeply involved in relief work aimed to support the persecuted and impoverished Armenians during the 1890s massacres of Abdul Hamid II (“bloody Sultan”) as well as during the Genocide and in its immediate aftermath.
The Scandinavians engaged in that humanitarian activities were not only diplomats, missionaries, and relief workers who were in the Ottoman Empire at the time, but also many individuals from Scandinavia: writers, priests, reporters, even school children from Sweden, Norway and Denmark raised awareness of the Armenian atrocities and their human and political implications, amassed funds for the substantial missionary and relief work. Founded in Sweden in 1894, “Women Missionary Workers” (KMA in Danish: Kvindelige Missions Arbejdere) branched out to Denmark in 1900 and Norway in 1902. Throughout the first decade of the 20th century prominent Scandinavian women - Maria Jacobsen, Alma Johansson, Bodil Katharine Biørn, and Jenny Jensen-graduated from the KMA mission school in Copenhagen and got ready for their challenging work among destitute Armenians. In parallel Relief Organization of Danish Friends of Armenians (Danske Armeniervenner or DA) was established partially due to the endeavors of a famous Danish teacher, aid worker, and League of Nations Commissioner Karen Jeppe. She dedicated her life to the Armenian refugees from her advent in Urfa in 1903 to her death in Syria in 1935.
During World War I when the Ottoman Empire joined the war as an ally of Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914 the Scandinavian countries were neutral. Thus, missionaries and relief workers could witness the execution of the Genocide, rescue survivors from massacres, death marches, and forced assimilation, and collect survivors’ testimonies. Perhaps the best-known Scandinavian account of these events is the published diary of Maria Jacobsen. It has to be established that archival documents and publications by Bodil Biørn, Alma Johansson, Karen Marie Petersen, Hansine Marcher, Thora von Wedel-Jarlsberg, Karen Jeppe also contain important and detailed descriptions of their experiences during the Genocide in the Central and Eastern regions of the Empire – Harpoot, Mush, Diyarbekir, Urfa, etc.
The role of the Scandinavian diplomats was also significant in terms of witnessing and collecting information about the destructions of the Armenians. In Constantinople (Istanbul), the Ottoman capital, Danish envoy Carl Ellis Wandel was continuously informed on the ongoing events by his fellow diplomats - members of the Muslim Ottoman establishment, Western eyewitnesses reporting from the provinces and Ottoman Christian circles. Thus he could prepare detailed reports to his superiors on “the cruel intent of the Turks to exterminate the Armenian people.” Another Swedish diplomat, military attaché Einar af Wirsen, in his memoirs noted down a conversation he had with Talaat Pasha in October 1915, during which the Young Turk leader had commented on a report that 800,000 Armenians had been killed, saying, “I assure you, this is not true, it was only 600,000.” In order to describe the massacresof the Armenians Swedish politician Hjalmar Branting (1917) and Danish scholar Åge Meyer Benedictsen (1925) used the term ‘folkmord/folkemord’ (‘the murder of a people’), which is still put in practice to denote or translate the term ‘genocide.’
The history of the immediate aftermath of the Armenian Genocide had an equal significance in Scandinavia. On a political level, the governments of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden strove to avoid everything linked to the Ottoman Armenians and ‘the Armenian Question.’ But aid work among the survivors continued this time mainly in Syria, Lebanon, Greece, and the Armenian Soviet Republic. New orphanages, workshops, schools, and even villages were built. Norwegian explorer, scientist, and diplomat Fridtjof Nansen who worked as the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees joined this humanitarian activity and sheltered the homeless Armenians.
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