Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Blaðsíða 308

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LE NORD
men of their own nation. Sometimes Armenians in other coun-
tries wrote to Miss Jeppe to send them a bride. If the immigra-
tion laws of U. S. A. had not become so rigid, many more girls
could have found homes there, either by marriage or with near
relatives.
To begin with, the boys were as a rule taught a trade. But
here was a problem; there were already a great many artisans
in Aleppo, mostly Armenians. Altogether the towns were
crowded with refugees, while outside the towns there was no
end of uncultivated land. From the very first, Miss Jeppe had
planned to settle Armenians on the land, but in the first years
after the war, things were too unsettled in Syria, and it was not
safe to move outside the towns. Gradually, however, the country
was pacified, and her plans could begin to take shape.
In 1924 she rented land from a big Bedouin chief with finan-
cial aid from the Swedish branch of the “Fellowship of Recon-
ciliation”. Some families who had been peasants before moved
out from the misery of the refugee camps in Aleppo, and there
Karen Jeppe began to send out big boys from the Fiome to be
trained as agriculturists. As they grew up, most of them got a
plot of land, built their own houses, and married Armenian girls
chiefly from the Rescue Home.
Both in the colonies and in the Home, Karen Jeppe provided
schooling not only for the children, but for the grown up people
as well who had had no education during their exile.
She writes: “The school is a very important part of our work,
as the people could never successfully have returned to Armenian
life if they had not obtained at least some degree of education.
Mostly they have forgotten their language and, of course, every-
thing else with it. Indeed, one hardly believes one’s own eyes
when comparing the ragged, dirty, wildlooking people coming
in, with the, to some degree, civilised persons leaving a few
months later.”
On an average the stay in the Home lasted four months, and
only in exceptional cases more than six months.
Karen Jeppe writes: “The spirit in the Home is very satis-
factory. The inmates are happy, working intensely in school and
trade. They often express their gratitude towards the League of
Nations. which has not only rescued them from slavery and
misery, but has, at the same time, given them a good start in a
new life.