As we aproach the 24th, I must confess I never knew of this remarkable person. What an inspiration!!
http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/ukjeppe.htm
What a truly strange creature we are. We belong to a species not only capable of the most horrendous cruelty but also of spawning such people as Karen Jeppe.
http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/ukjeppe.htm
To the Armenians, dependent on her initiatives, this was a great loss. They buried her in Aleppo, where her tomb may still be seen.
Obituaries weere written from many sides – one of the most touching comes from an Armenian writing:”Mother, your dust will still shield, and when we build our own capital at the foot of Ararat, we will build a memorial shrine to you. The heart of any Armenian is really a Pantheon to you. Armenians, let us bare our heads and fall on our knees – a messenger from God has left us. “ (Quot. after Chr.Winther, p. 40)
The Armenians looked upon Karen Jeppe as their patron angel, which the following story goes to prove. After the great earthquake in 1927, with many casualties and great damage,.an Arab and an Armenian spoke to each other. The Armenian said that here in Aleppo nothing happens, for here a holy person lives, and the Arab asked who that was. Karen Jeppe, was the answer.
Karen Jeppe is one of Denmark’s great women, known to most of the World as the woman who without hesitation gave her whole working life to a people whom she came to love. She set out and worked in the German mission, but she never did any missionary work herself. After a short while she became aware that the Armenian people needed no conversion, but help to helping themselves, and here her formidable talent for organization came to full bloom She managed to create friendly relations between bedouins and farmers – an exploit in itself, but she also opened the eyes of the Western world to the ethnic persecution which the Armenians underwent. She was what to-day we should call a liberation philosopher, who with all means tried to create possibibilities of survival for the people without a homeland.
In 1927 she received the Medal of Merit in gold.
Obituaries weere written from many sides – one of the most touching comes from an Armenian writing:”Mother, your dust will still shield, and when we build our own capital at the foot of Ararat, we will build a memorial shrine to you. The heart of any Armenian is really a Pantheon to you. Armenians, let us bare our heads and fall on our knees – a messenger from God has left us. “ (Quot. after Chr.Winther, p. 40)
The Armenians looked upon Karen Jeppe as their patron angel, which the following story goes to prove. After the great earthquake in 1927, with many casualties and great damage,.an Arab and an Armenian spoke to each other. The Armenian said that here in Aleppo nothing happens, for here a holy person lives, and the Arab asked who that was. Karen Jeppe, was the answer.
Karen Jeppe is one of Denmark’s great women, known to most of the World as the woman who without hesitation gave her whole working life to a people whom she came to love. She set out and worked in the German mission, but she never did any missionary work herself. After a short while she became aware that the Armenian people needed no conversion, but help to helping themselves, and here her formidable talent for organization came to full bloom She managed to create friendly relations between bedouins and farmers – an exploit in itself, but she also opened the eyes of the Western world to the ethnic persecution which the Armenians underwent. She was what to-day we should call a liberation philosopher, who with all means tried to create possibibilities of survival for the people without a homeland.
In 1927 she received the Medal of Merit in gold.