Maria Jacobsen

Maria Jacobsen was a Danish nurse and missionary who became one of the most important American relief workers at Harpoot/Kharput (Harput), a center of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman interior. Sent by the Women Missionary Workers of Denmark (KMA), she reached Harpoot in 1907 and nursed at the American Board mission hospital.

When the deportations and massacres of the Armenian Genocide began in 1915, she stayed at her post, kept a detailed diary of what she witnessed, and sheltered, fed, and hid Armenian children and deportees at grave personal risk. She distributed American relief funds and took orphans into the mission's care, and after the war she directed Near East Relief's orphanage work at Harpoot, turning over roughly 3,600 children to the organization in 1919. Illness forced her home to Denmark, but she returned to the region and gave the rest of her life to the survivors.

She founded the Bird's Nest, an orphanage and home for Armenian genocide orphans, at Sidon (Saida) and later moved and expanded it at Byblos (Jbeil) on the Lebanese coast, where it still stands. The KMA took over the Bird's Nest in 1928, and Jacobsen continued directing it until her death in 1960. She is buried on the grounds, which also house the Aram Bezikian Museum.