Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 29. maj 2004 / Time Line May 29, 2004
Version 3.005/29/2004
Norwegian city of Kragerø honours Bodil Biørn,
unsung hero and relief worker during Armenian genocide
Brussels, Belgium - On the initiative of the Armenian community of
Aleppo, Syria, the Norwegian city of Kragerø (11000
inhabitants) has erected a statue honoring Bodil Catharina
Biørn, who spent 30 years of her life providing relief to
the Armenians of Turkey before, during and after the Armenian
Genocide. The statue will be unveiled on Saturday, May 29.
After studying nursing in Germany, Bodil Biørn, the daughter
of a wealthy ship owner, left her native Kragerø in 1905 to
go to Turkey. There, as part of benevolent evangelical missions,
she provided aid to the Christian populations, and especially to
the Armenians, who endured oppression under the Ottomans and who
were regularly victims of extortion.
Stationed in various regions of the Ottoman Empire (e.g., Van,
Cilicia), Bodil Biørn was in Mush in
1915 when the Genocide began.
She poured her energy into providing assistance to survivors there
and later in Armenia, during the First Republic (1918-1920).
After the Sovietization of Armenia, she continued her
philathropical work in the Armenian orphanages of Syria and
Lebanon, where she adopted an orphan she named Fridjof. She finally
left the region to return to her country in 1936.
"It is a moral duty for Armenians to pay homage to the many
honorable, just people, often women, often Scandinavians, who
provided relief to the victims of the barbarity committed by the
Young Turks. With this commemoration, Bodil Biørn finally
emerges from anonymity and takes her place beside Maria Jacobsen,
Karen Jeppe, Alma
Johansson or Amalia Lange, her sisters in compassion," declared
Laurent Leylekian, executive director of the European Armenian
Federation.
05/29/2004
USA anvender
klyngebomber i Falluja i Irak, skriver Arbejderen.
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