Bodil Biørn

Bodil Catharina Biørn (born May 27, 1871 in Kragerø ; died July 22, 1960 in Oslo ) was a Norwegian missionary. She witnessed the Armenian genocide and saved the lives of numerous Armenian refugees in the east of the Ottoman Empire .

Life

Biørn came from a wealthy family and was one of eleven siblings. After graduating from school, she wanted to be a concert singer, but at the age of 25 she turned increasingly to religion and wanted to help suffering people for this reason. She was trained as a nurse in Norway and Germany. The organization Kvinnelige Misjonsarbeidere sent her as a missionary to the east of the Ottoman Empire in 1905 after she had attended a mission school in Copenhagen in 1904 . First she worked in Mezereh (now Elazığ ).

From 1907 she ran a hospital and a children's home for Armenians in Muş . She received between 50 and 70 patients there every day. During the genocide, patients and hospital staff were murdered or displaced. Together with her Swedish colleague Alma Johansson, she was the only western witness to the genocide in the village. After the genocide, she returned to Norway in 1917. In 1921 she moved to Armenia and opened a children's home in Alexandropol with Norwegian donations. After Armenia was annexed to the Soviet Union in 1922, she had to leave the country in 1924.

She went to Aleppo in Syria and worked with Armenian refugees there. In 1934 she traveled back to Norway. Until her death, she devoted herself to the fate of Armenian refugees as a result of genocide with fundraising, lectures and articles.

Appreciation

Like Fridtjof Nansen , Biørn is widely recognized in Armenia for its work for the Armenian people; both are mentioned in the Genocide Museum in Yerevan . Her photos and records of the 1915 and 1916 genocide are in the Riksarkivet in Oslo.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b Norske kvinner documenter folk murder . In: Arkivverket . ( arkivverket.no [accessed March 21, 2018]).
↑ «Jeg har vært med å se old det frykteligste som tenkes» . In: Aftenposten . ( aftenposten.no [accessed on March 21, 2018]).
^ ^A ^b ^c Hans-Jørgen Wallin consecration: Bodil Biørn . In: Store norske leksikon . March 20, 2018 ( snl.no [accessed March 21, 2018]).

personal data
SURNAME	Biørn, Bodil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Biørn, Bodil Catharina (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Norwegian missionary
DATE OF BIRTH	May 27, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH	Kragerø
DATE OF DEATH	July 22, 1960
Place of death	Oslo

[:0-1] Norske kvinner documenter folk murder . In: Arkivverket . ( arkivverket.no [accessed March 21, 2018]).

[2] «Jeg har vært med å se old det frykteligste som tenkes» . In: Aftenposten . ( aftenposten.no [accessed on March 21, 2018]).

[:1-3] A ^b ^c Hans-Jørgen Wallin consecration: Bodil Biørn . In: Store norske leksikon . March 20, 2018 ( snl.no [accessed March 21, 2018]).