his vote may well prove that inexperience is not always a bad thing and. you're watching news the live from berlin up next is a documentary on the nansen passport which helped millions of refugees after the first world war remember you can always get all the latest news on our web site that's. michael ok thanks for tuning it. and for. language courses. video audio. anytime anywhere.

in the one nine hundred twenty s. the russian revolution and the armenian genocide led to millions of people being forced to leave their homelands to make it impossible for them to return to their respective rulers revoke their citizenship matters. jurists introduced the term stateless to describe people who had been driven into permanent exile. writer lattimer noble cause himself one of those affected said it was as if they had dropped off the face of the planet . over two million people mainly russians and armenians were brutally up rigid and

forced to begin a new life elsewhere they dispersed for the four corners of the year. but in spite of all their misfortune the stateless people who were lucky enough to have a headstrong humanist norwegian on their side his name was featured off nights. after the first world war had ravaged europe and left millions dead in the league of nations was founded in geneva in one nine hundred nineteen its goal was to prevent such a catastrophe from ever happening again. the forty founding nations sent delegates there and with high hopes. norway chose for a day off once and to be its permanent representative. he shared the ideals of the

league of nations a city took us to jail did look at the time since the first world war the intellectuals were men with authority whose opinions were sought after. at the league of nations people came together who had never been trained for the roles that they were now expected to fill after world war one you know toward critical now again. trigger off munson was primarily a scientist who liked to work outdoors he led several perilous expeditions to conduct zoological and oceanographic research. in eight hundred ninety five he came close to reaching the north pole and exploit that made him world famous. for. his scientific discoveries also earned him recognition from academics around the world nansen used his fame to support

norway's independence movement which led to the dissolution of norway's union with sweden in one thousand zero five nansen was celebrated as a hero by his countrymen. his first mission for the league of nations was to repatriate prisoners of war in late one nine hundred ninety nine some set off for russia where thousands of men who'd been captured by russian forces during world war one were still being held in far flung parts of the country. it's right that the league of nations takes the repatriation of the prisoners and hand as their suffering is the result of a war the likes of which the world has never seen the leak must make it impossible for such a catastrophe to ever repeat itself. that manson's mission was made more difficult by the fact that russia was in the midst of a revolution nicholas the second the last tsar had been forced to abdicate in one

nine hundred seventeen he was then imprisoned by the bolsheviks and later executed along with his wife and five children under lenin the communists swore to rid russia of its old aristocracy but it will use it. at the start it was viewed as a coup d'etat. but then the whole course of history and what was to come next wasn't clear. still it was a declaration. of war on the ruling classes yeah you don't. hear hope my great grandfather was a chamberlain or something like that at the winter palace he served there until the revolution and even in the months that followed that ended badly because there was an attempt to assassinate lenin when a certain family kaplan shot him. lenin survived the attack and reacted by arresting five hundred dignitaries including my great grandfather and locking them

up in the crunch that fortress. from what i understand after a few days or maybe two weeks because they didn't know what to do with these hostages they tied them together back to back and tossed them into the gulf and learned. all they all drowned including my great grandfather neither he nor my grandfather have a grave they just disappeared q you sean. he's always felt it comes. to communists came to power in moscow and st petersburg and raised the red army to fight a life and death struggle against the counter-revolutionary whites jetted took dope from october in one nine hundred seventeen when everything blew up until the moment when they fled they lived in a country which was still their own but surrounded by terra result will be caught in the bunch of x. would derail entire trains and then davy up the passages they check people's hands

and if someone had a well kept hands they shot him on the spot when they saw it as a sign of the bush was easy aristocracy you can't overstate the savagery of the revolution with this it's of us evolution. you know new shoes giving new christmas cookies at the start of the revolution the thing which people remember most vividly both the whites and the reds for the expropriations. the expropriation of people's homes first confiscation then dispossession symbolized the collapse of the social order. it was into this chaos that freed you off once and came to arrange for the repatriation of six hundred thousand soldiers captured in the first world war. i've returned from the land of shadows and when i think of all the unbearable human

suffering i saw there i can't sit back and do nothing but join forces before it's too late. manson's travels through russia convinced him that the country was on the verge of famine so he asked the big western powers to provide food aid right away. when they refused he turned to humanitarian organizations like the american red cross and since persistence on this is very first. mission earned him the reputation of being an on fount to replay at the league of nations. and was also one of the few westerners to predict the coming apocalypse which would drive so many russians into exile. don't you see suicide this is where three centuries of history for the speech in

ski family came to an end and they rose with a romanov's when they ascended to the throne in sixteen thirteen by nine hundred twenty it was all over. look if we merge in this is he did imagine that it's night the sea is frozen all the way to the finish coast thirty five or forty kilometers away you set off in the dark to reach the finish border and. my grandfather was accompanied by his two eldest sons my father was twelve his older brother fifteen my grandfather was forty one of forty two he and his eldest son were on cross-country skis. my father was in a horse drawn sleigh possibly with other escapees the red guards would patrol here at night and shoot whenever they heard a sound. a horse galloping or noises made by a sleigh or skis. is this good for me all bruce and each night the reds would

send out an ice breaker from petrograd to foil escape attempts. to treat a little nearer than me but my father remembers most is the sound of the ice cracking and wondering if they'd make it across before the ice breaker read. you can imagine how risky it was to meet with the people traffickers who had to be paid as my grandparents didn't own much they were expelled they might have had a little jewelry with them i don't know. it was them and it all ended right here in well it's moving. list today left everything behind them absolutely everything. this kid is on she's a dear people were fleeing mainly from the big cities like moscow and st petersburg

which were in the hands of the bolsheviks. only elicit a rallying cry among the classes opposed to the revolution was go south where a forerunner of the white army was already forming and we lose on the lawn. with the capture of rostov on don in january nineteen twenty the reds victory was sealed the white army forces were pushed back and eventually driven out of russia. the allies also played a major role during this huge up evil and really during the entire civil war as well not only did they supply the whites with weapons they also played an important part in their evacuation of their ships were docked nearby. they came and collected people in the caucasus region and on the black sea coast. that was the start of the mass exodus because all the while.

i don't get it at first the reds let the white forces go but many civilians went along with them. by the final months of one nine hundred twenty people were fleeing in panic from the national. by the end of one nine hundred twenty one and a half million russians had left their homeland and were waiting to be taken in by various european countries most of these refugees hope to settle in germany or france but in constantinople the company of the ottoman empire their situation only worsened becoming a humanitarian catastrophe. hundreds of thousands of soldiers from the defeated white army streamed into the city with their families and became stranded there.

they lived in cramped emergency shelters scattered throughout constantinople. at the time of their arrival turkish nationalists were driving orthodox christian minorities out of the ottoman empire and so the russians were also orthodox christians were unwelcome. the red cross cared for the russian refugees as best they could but soon realized that the problem was too big for them to handle on their own they sent a telegram to the diplomats at the league of nations who decided to create the post of high commissioner for refugees and gave the job to free joseph munson. you should not send a decision to make nuns and high commissioner for refugees was prompted by the success of his mission to repatriate the prisoners of war. in addition that the league of nations humanitarian affairs were considered matters for smaller nations . so the major powers were more than happy to insurance this task to the

representative of the nordic country a few resource. when once in arrived in constantinople and his function as high commissioner for refugees he was shocked by the russian refugees living conditions . i thought i saw a whole city before me with its thousands of lights it was their camps spread out over the plain camp fire by camp fire and there they were sleeping on the ground without any shelter of any kind they do not know where they are going and will find no shelter when they come dancing perfectly realized that the russians had to be evacuated from constantinople circle certainly just like that raise the question of how they should be distributed among the various host countries and who should care for them look as to that you but right from the start there was also the question of their legal status who are these people and how can we protect them from a legal perspective balls and also everyone assumed that nuns and would also be

organizing the refugees expected return to their homeland a short while later. ramon. here in december of one nine hundred twenty one issued a decree in the form of an automated. all russians living outside of the country or called upon to recognize the new regime and had three months in which to register at a soviet consulate if they failed to do so by this deadline their citizenship would be revoked one and a half million russians ignored this ultimatum and consequently became stateless. the bolshevik government's wholesale and collective disenfranchisement of millions was completely unprecedented with a simple decree a stroke of

a pen people's worlds fell apart. because russians who weren't living in russia were no longer russian citizens they now had no nationality at all finding themselves in a legal vacuum that raised the question who are they then they were stateless and that wasn't just a fact but also a legal issue. so some thought had to be given to introducing a system to care for those who no longer benefited from the protection of any state of being and he did a pretty sort of can only knowledge and efficient refugees will now seen as people without nationality who no longer had a country of origin and so were anomalies in the context of international law and that only. at this time when new nation states were arising out of the ashes of empires the first thing that these new states did was to introduce border controls

from susie tops. to some entrance and exit visas and identity papers were now required most everywhere book reduce but as many russians had left their country with documents that were only valid in their own land and had since expired or had no idea at all they had nothing to show. this marks the first time that europe was confronted with the issue of undocumented migrants a solution had to be found which would allow these people to travel within europe. the idea for the nuns in passport was born the p.s. if you do it was called a certificate at first it was the solution to a very concrete and urgent problem it was your final. these kinds of then there's never really been any agreement at the european level

on the refugee issue so this was a real innovation and one that was realized in a very short time keeps nimal cool. manson assembled a group of lawyers comprised of stateless russians together they considered what rights and responsibilities would be associated with such an identity document for different host countries their goal was to coordinate residency and working conditions and to facilitate travel nansen embarked on a veritable world tour to present and promote his passport in as many countries as possible. through commission will said i commissioned munson and takes office which was linked to the league of nations had virtually no financial resources and no funding didn't do all they had was an operating budget that was simply ridiculous rigid function motility

trued the league of nations gave nansen just fifteen thousand pounds sterling which were allocated for the evacuation of the refugees from constantinople. when the people left constantinople they had no idea they'd be in paris only two years later project why they only found their way there gradually and then move relatively few made their way directly from constantinople to paris or to france at all. about the one there is really was a journey in stages. whether in paris berlin new york or shanghai russian refugees had to register with a committee comprised of a representative of the office of the high commissioner and other russian refugees checked whether the state was people met the criteria to receive a nansen passport it was valid for a year and could be extended for a life time holders were expressed. forbidden from returning to their countries of

origin after receiving the passport they were under the protection of their host country. it's gone up and up and even at the beginning of the one nine hundred thirty s. people were talking about the nuns and passports but in reality it was only a collection of these that looked like anything but a passport from this description everyone thinks of a complete document but flipping through its pages you can see it wasn't that way at all but in reality it took many years until the nuns and pass had become this little booklet. still it was viewed as an outstanding solution to the refugee problem which was considered huge at the time when you. could do where you have to give way yes there's nothing but travel and more travel . so fast if. they went through poland marcie first to kiev into poland and then

arrived in berlin. this is this sob i was born stateless in berlin i didn't have a homeland days and i was like my parents i had nothing i was completely stateless ah yeah yeah to give. up our country defeated ya as a student in berlin papa did any job going he was dying of hunger. if you hear he was studying to be an engineer but he did all kinds of work you have to let me see he looked after an awful voice whom he took for walks in the park and who treated him like a dog i think i'm a shia i have a the hasidim wife is if you worked in a cinema and made the music by turning the hurdy gurdy public did all that. high commissioner nansen also tried to find work for all of the statements refugees. of

course it's not easy for former princesses who've never held a broom in their hands before to kneel down and scrub the steps and floors of public buildings but now they do it without grumbling because it's still better than selling themselves on the street which many unfortunately have to do. to be able to complete his chance nansen worked closely with alberto tama director of the international labor office he had also been set up by the league of nations shortly after its founding in one thousand nine hundred. by collaborating they could relocate stateless refugees to places where workers were needed they sent out questionnaires to discover what measures the governments would be prepared to take i bet tomorrow. wanted to turn the international labor office into an organization that could create a macro economic balance between unemployment and labor shortages worldwide now he

had a project that legitimized his organization and its role due to the refugees why because no one asks for stateless. refugees. france was one of the countries to play a decisive role at the time france was seen as the united states of europe meaning it was open to immigration yes it was the only country that was in need of workers and prepared to accept them even with halfway open arms. the russians were mainly concentrated in paris at first they gravitated there automatically because most of the big russian organizations were there. in one thousand twenty the russian high school was founded and infrastructure that played an important role in the organization of the russian community in paris was created .

it is not to preserve the key some companies relied on russian any greys have for one very simple reason because there were very left wing if not outright pro-communist elements in the french labor movement poor. communities time he exists to a company that employed a large number of russians whose hearts didn't exactly yearn for revolution was guaranteed a reliable workforce. of one month. i don't so in certain circumstances such as at the big of a mil plant and beyond cool it was desirable to take on russians. who. owns the routes you would would you. close to nine thousand russians with nansen

passports worked in the car factories of train no in-situ one. in french society the image of the russian prince denigrated to driving a taxi cab was typical of the fate of russian emigres. russian restaurants and nightclubs were popular with revelers in paris but many russian artists are become stateless also made it clear to westerners what it meant to be uprooted and forced into exile. or your art is. soon moved over surely robbed of their nationality they only possessed a nansen passport and yet remained russians among them composers sergei prokofiev igor stravinsky and sergei rupp on enough. dancer on a puppet of. painters nicholas to stale and mark sure god and writers iran born in the know about over and bloody mary noble cough in one of his letters he

wrote mother we must return mustn't way we cannot be that all his died turned to dust such an idea could drive one mad not having a corner to oneself is simply torture at times. almost a million once in passports were issued to stateless russians allowing them to find new homes around the globe who very phrase also my god they survived like all the others. they survived but they still had to live with their memories. my poor grandmother own my god. twenty two and was awarded the nobel peace prize in recognition of his three years of service to the international community. the nobel committee honored him for his commitment to repatriating prisoners of war famine victims in russia and finally for introducing the passport for stateless russian refugees which bears his name.

but this international recognition didn't work was through on the contrary just weeks after the nobel prize ceremony nansen the former polar explorer embarked on his last big mission fighting for the rights of the armenian people. just so. he said working it out from this point and they stick out he had to believe you all know also for your money can see every ship coming in going out.

the rehearsal bottles yeah be walter from the pool from the street or you. along with his commitment to helping russian refugees nansen had long been preoccupied with the plight of the armenians. he repeatedly called the ethnic cleansing that occurred in the ottoman empire in one thousand nine hundred fifteen the greatest catastrophe in human history. the armenians one of the christian minorities in the ottoman empire had suffered a number of massacres since eight hundred sixty then in april of one nine hundred fifteen things took an even more serious turn. my grandfather was

a lawyer in kaiser carried in central anatolia dude it's the major city in that part of capita osha. he had a good relationship with his colleagues and the presiding judge everything was fine to say goodbye then one morning two police officers knocked on his door and said to my grandfather the presiding judge wishes to see you because something's unclear with one of the files. and with incredible clairvoyance and utmost calm my grandfather turned to my grandmother and said the files are all perfectly clear. they've come to take me away you won't see me again to convert to islam so you can flee as quickly as possible. these were the last words they ever exchanged words but my grandmother was holding my father in her arms he was just too he says and later had no memory of his father only bob do the muggle mail bunky socially

i'm sitting on but some bear. back home and fear my grandmother lived in the pontus mountains they killed her husband and her family and her sisters all this don't she and her two children were deported to the syrian desert they had to walk hundreds of kilometers. between a muscle in the desert you have to cross the entire length of the ottoman empire through the highlands. the last so tell them. she killed with the cubit i know she was wealthy because she had diamonds and gold. but i believe that little by little she tried to convert them into money when he's completely her children were still very young and didn't survive i still think. said general memo this young mother had to endure all kinds of horrors she and all the others you saw . one and

a half million armenians were killed on the orders of the government of the so-called young turks they took advantage of the chaos created by the first world war to massacre the armenians in their own land without having to fear any foreign intervention. news of the massacre spread quickly and a number of high ranking individuals first and foremost fringe of nuns and himself swore that justice would prevail and that the young turks would be held responsible for their crimes. armenians who survived the massacre and deportations were left to fend for themselves in the syrian desert after the end of world war one this area was under french control friends had been given the mandate for syria and lebanon orphanages and emergency shelters were quickly set up.

they don't like is the question is what's going to happen to these people yemeni and us themselves as seen in letters to the french authorities wanted to return home they write that autumn is almost over and they must return to so that crops so they'll have nothing to eat next summer. many of them were pharmacies these little girls who p.s. one up. but the survivors didn't return to armenia. in one thousand nine hundred two most a fog came on ataturk came to power though he wasn't involved in the armenian genocide of nine hundred fifteen ataturk was a fervent turkish nationalist he drove the last autumn insult not of his palace and founded the modern day republic of turkey in which christians had no place it edge of who god is already and so went on many in this wanted to attend to turkey

because the land was now called the republic of ticky they were denied entry because they went turks and when they presented them papers from the ottoman empire because they were also means the consulates were instructed not to provide them with papers that would give them to nationality but up. in the city to check. to be rid of the armenians once and for all ataturk collectively revoked their citizenship just as lenin had done with the exiled russians the previous year. i have confirmed to the council that we are resolved to helping the armenian refugees with a piece of id like the one we introduced for the russians employing the same methods as the russian regime the current turkish government refuses to let armenian refugees return home on turkish soil this government has no reason to reject the granting of such a certificate to the armenians. it should also be remembered that the league of nations has already on three occasions issued resolutions on behalf of the

armenians and their national status to no effect. this is an opportunity for us to at least do something for these refugees and i think we must seize it. if it's more a demand of heli official request was made at the league of nations mansome was already high commissioner for the russian refugees so the leeks general assembly put it in writing that the certificate introduced for the russians could also be expanded to include the armenians. from ports throughout asia minor from constantinople to is mer the remaining armenians in turkey left the land of their birth for good. survivors and the french controlled mandate territories mainly orphans came aboard in beirut. several hundred thousand in total they wound up scattered around the world and they are many and desperate.

electrician receptivity to the allocation of nuns and passports was conducted by refugee organizations themselves. the league of nations and the office of the high commissioner had a delegation that headed the refugee committees in each country. in france two committees of armenian refugees were mainly responsible for handing out least documents. i mean years went to them to attest to their identity is the birthplace date of birth that bad the son if so when set up then they could get a documents proving their identity full to swallow but i. really don't get it. at that time my father was twelve years old yet here he came in france after having

been. in the orphanage in lisbon and not only among yeah he was. eleven or twelve years old and he came with nance and possible the wrong yeah. but this is armenia yes. object of depicted september nineteenth twenty four. for him for edition of the armenian question by. refugees and then i look aided by the russian government. nonfinite down to one hundred nine some with a man who represented the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century so then he did a lot for no we joined independents he believed in nations in peaceful nation states and he was convinced that people were always better off in their homelands

than in exile so he felt that the situation of the armenians couldn't last that the best thing that could happen to the exiled armenians scattered around the world would be to get their own land a place to call home she's. nuts and invested much energy in this project which he felt particularly passionate about his plan was to settle fifty thousand refugees at the edge of the caucasus and soviet territory after receiving the mandate from the league of nations nansen visited the site accompanied by technical experts. if you don't move his own to compress at first glance this project looked great but in reality there were huge ideological problems. first of all this union was soviet you know more so the western powers weren't very keen on creating ties with the soviet union which they were fighting elsewhere. could be so the question was could the western backers and russia which was also invested in the project reach an

agreement in the end nothing came of it public. wasn't able to get the western powers and the soviet union to agree so his resettlement project failed. took this very hard he quit the league of nations for failing to support him yet in one thousand nine hundred forty seven tens of thousands followed stalin's call to come and start a new life in the soviet republic of armenia. but for a joke manson didn't live to see. the old. me of the one nine hundred thirty. thousands of norwegians flocking to his state funeral to pay their last respects to

a famous polar explorer international diplomat and nobel peace prize laureate. in the years following his death europe experienced new waves of refugees cold in conflicts who had been driven out of iraq and jews fleeing from hitler's nazi germany. referrers my parents were russian jews and their situation had become intolerable and the nation is united long for a time they were living with a german woman who treated them like. it was awful and she humiliated and treated them like swine because they were jewish or short finally they decided to leave germany because it wasn't possible to live under hitler they had no rights no life their every joke at the y. quick review of. even though they held benson passports the russian jews in germany shared the same fate as the german jews they were forced to flee. but times

have changed the great depression and mass unemployment had caused many countries to close their borders stateless refugees were no longer welcome anywhere in early one nine hundred thirty nine two hundred thousand people fled from franco's spain into france a country that had previously welcomed many russians and armenians but now friends decided to in turn them into towns on the border and the league of nations supported these measures thereby turning their back. exon the ideals for which we just mentioned that fought for so passionately. the passports bearing his name were still being granted but now only in isolated cases. in one nine hundred forty five beleaguered nations was replaced by the united nations to address the scale of the refugee problem the un in one nine hundred fifty one adopted

a new refugee convention based in large part on the original charter drafted by fritjof nuns. you name all of the russian and a million refugees remember months and differently and their memories of him differ because they report with him most of the same unknowns and in the case of the armenians they received a passport which states nationality i mean well i mean you know i mean he said when i wanted to renew my idea at the city hall of the seventh i want to small in paris the man said to me you know you have to write to know. what he posts google that talk i said i'm not writing anywhere but he replied you must you may be a frenchman but you're not

a french frenchman i remarked because i wish you hadn't noticed them but after thinking it over i realized he's right i'm really not i been quite offended but then i told myself it's true i'm not a french frenchman. but in armenia i'm not an armenian armenian either you know in turkey i'm not a turkish turk i'm happy to be wherever i am from a month and over today i'm glad to be here today i'm even a bit norwegian or you know so i'm armenian norwegian anatolian people i come from a land where people have big noses and big ears i'm the sequel with more to follow through this week quote in order to. follow the. home close. to.

the. los. there are. center the conflicts are confronting the powerful. the north atlantic treaty organization the nato has just tried its seventieth birthday but it wasn't a happy one my guess this week here is nato headquarters is rose got so much luck feelgood eyes ations deputy secretary general who she's now acknowledged that they

so has serious splits in its unity conflict some. thirty minute delays. what secrets lie behind these moments. find out in an immersive experience and explore passon aging world cultural heritage sites. w world heritage three sixty fifteen. only order is history the world is reorganizing itself and the media's role use keep shifting cowards the topic in focus at the global media forum twenty nineteen the laboratory for the digital age group. who are we following whom do we trust debate and shape

the future as the global media forum twenty nineteen the place may for minds. this is the news live from berlin clashes in central parents as yellow vest protesters reclaim the spotlight after the fire at notre dame cathedral police have made scores of arrests as protesters battle officers and set fires in the french capital it's the twenty third straight weekend of yellow vest demonstrations will go to our correspondent on the scene in paris also coming up.