Elsa Brändström

Elsa Brändström in 1929

Elsa Brändström (March 26, 1888 – March 4, 1948) was a Swedish nurse and philanthropist. She was known around the world as the "Angel of Siberia" (German: Engel von Sibirien).

Life and Commitment

Elsa Brändström was born in 1888 in Saint Petersburg, the daughter of the Military Attaché at the Swedish Embassy, Edvard Brändström, and his wife Anna Wilhelmina Eschelsson. In 1891, when Elsa was three years old, Edvard Brändström and his family returned to Sweden. In 1906, Brändström, now a General, became the Swedish Ambassador at the court of Tsar Nicholas II and returned to St Petersburg.

Elsa spent her childhood in Linköping in Sweden. From 1906 to 1908, she studied at the Anna Sandström Teachers Training College in Stockholm but returned to St. Petersburg in 1908. Her mother died in 1913. Elsa was in St. Petersburg at the outbreak of World War I and volunteered for a position as a nurse in the Russian army.

World War I

In 1915, Elsa Brändström went to Siberia together with her friend and helper Ethel von Heidenstam for the Swedish Red Cross, to introduce basic medical treatment for the German and Austrian POWs, who were treated barbarically by the Russians. Up to 80 percent of the POWs died of cold, hunger and diseases. As Elsa Brändström visited the first camp and witnessed the inhuman situation, she decided to dedicate her life to these Germanic soldiers. The men from Germany and Austria, so many close to death with Typhoid fever, looked upon the tall, blue-eyed, blond-haired nurse and benefactress as an angel. She was known as the "Angel of Siberia" from there on forth, even to the communist Russians.

Back in St. Petersburg, she began the establishment of a Swedish Aid organization. Her work was severely hindered by the outburst of the October Revolution in the year 1917. In 1918, the Russian authorities withdrew her work permit but, nevertheless, she did not give up. Between 1919 and 1920, she made several trips to Siberia until she was arrested in Omsk and even committed to death for spying,[1] later the sentence was revoked and Brändström was interned in 1920. After her release, she returned to Sweden (via Stettin with the ship MS Lisboa, where the German government gave here an official public reception) and organized fund-raising for the former POWs and their families, afterwards she emigrated to Germany.

Peacetime

In 1922 her book, Among POWs in Russia and Siberia 1914-1920, was published. From then onwards she looked after former POWs in a rehabilitation sanatorium for home coming German soldiers in Marienborn-Schmeckwitz. She bought a mill named “Schreibermühle“ close to Lychen (Uckermark) and used it as resocialization centre for former POWs. Schreibermühle had extensive lands including fields, forest and meadows on which potatoes and other crops could be grown. This was most useful at that time because the German Mark was an unstable currency and lost value from day to day.

In 1923, she undertook a six month tour in the USA, giving lectures to raise money for a new home for children of deceased and traumatized German and Austrian POW’s. On her trip she raised US$100,000 and traveled to 65 towns. At a stop at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, Brändström wore clothing of the Swedish Red Cross and "spoke about her thrilling experiences in Russia and Siberia during and after the war."[2]

In January 1924, she founded a children's home “Neusorge” in Mittweida which had room for more than 200 orphans and children in need. In Siberia she had promised many German soldiers, who were dying, that she would care for their children, which she did with all her heart.

In 1929 she married her great love Heinrich Gottlob Robert Ulich, a German Professor of Pedagogy. Afterwards, she moved together with him to Dresden. In 1931, she sold the “Schreibermühle“ and donated her other home, Neusorge, to the Welfare Centre in Leipzig. She founded the “Elsa-Brändström-Foundation-for Women” (the foundation awarded scholarships to children from Neusorge). On 3 January 1932, her daughter Brita was born in Dresden.

In 1933, Robert Ulich accepted a lectureship at Harvard University and in consequence the family moved to the USA. Here Elsa gave aid to newly arrived German and Austrian refugees. In 1939, she opened the “Window-Shop”, a restaurant which gave work opportunities for refugees in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

World War II

At the end of World War II, she started to raise funds for starving and shelterless women and children in need in Germany, and as a result, the organizations CARE International (Cooperative for American Relief in Europe) and CRALOG (Council of Relief Agencies Licensed for Operation in Germany) were established. Massive funds were collected from Americans and especially from German Americans, who accounted for >25% of the US population.[3] She undertook a final lecture tour in Europe on behalf of the “Save the Children Fund”.

Death

Elsa could not undertake her last planned journey to Germany because of illness. She died in 1948 of bone cancer and was buried in Sweden. Her daughter Brita stayed with her husband and children in the USA, Elsa Brändström-Ulich's husband Robert returned to Germany, where he died in 1977 in Stuttgart. Because of her commitment to POWs, Elsa Brändström became famous as a “patron saint” for soldiers. In Germany and Austria, many streets, schools and institutions are named after her.

"The war has brought about many heroines in various nations, but in my opinion, never again someone, who is more worthy of being honoured than Elsa Brändström." – General Alfred Knox, British Military Attaché in Russia.[4]

Honours and memory

Elsa Brändström as depicted on a German stamp in 1951

Among countless medals, awards and honours, Brändström was awarded the Silber Badge of the German Empire (German: Silberplakette des Deutschen Reiches) and the Royal Order of the Seraphim (Swedish Kungliga Serafimerorden). Elsa Brändström was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize "Heroine of Peace" five times: in 1922, twice in 1923, 1928 and 1929.[5]

In Memory of Elsa Brändström

A moving ceremony in Vienna's "Arne Karlsson Park" on September 16, 1965, preceded the official opening of the XXth International Conference of the Red Cross. In the presence of Austrian civilian and military authorities, members of the Swedish colony, leaders of the Austrian Red Cross and many delegates to the XXth International Conference, a monument to Elsa Brändström was unveiled. This monument, by the sculptor Robert Ullmann, stands as a testimony of gratitude to the famous Swedish nurse's work for German-Austrian prisoners during the First World War. [6]

Work

Literature

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Elsa Brändström

References

  1. ↑ Harry Graf Kessler, Tagebücher 1918 bis 1937. (actually he wrote, she was formally committed to death twice by the Soviet authorities) Editor: Wolfgang Pfeiffer-Belli. Frankfurt am Main (1982)
  2. ↑ "Students Appreciate Impressive Message of Elsa Brandstrom". Gustavian Weekly (College and Lutheran Church Archives, Gustavus Adolphus College). 10 April 1923. p. 4. Archived from the original on 30 April 2014. Retrieved 13 June 2014.
  3. ↑ In the 1990 U.S. Census, 58 million Americans (ca. 20%) claimed to be solely or partially of German descent.
  4. ↑ Citation from his memoirs, With the Russian Army: 1914-1917.
  5. ↑ Heroine of Peace
  6. ↑ [INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF THE RED CROSS, FIFTH YEAR, No. 56, NOVEMBER 1965 http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/RC_Nov-1965.pdf Page 613–614]
  7. ↑ Schickedanz über die auf tragischste Weise verschollene (verschleppte, vergewaltigte und ermordete?) Schwester Erika von Passow: „Wenn je eine deutsche Schwester von deutschen Soldaten von ganzem Herzen geliebt und verehrt wurde, dann war es Schwester Erika von Passow. Sie war in ihrem ganzen Wesen von so wundervoller fürsorglicher Zartheit (...)“
  8. ↑ Elsa Björkman-Goldschmidt war eine Jugend- und Schulfreundin von Elsa Brändström, die eine lebenslange Freundschaft verband. Sie war gleichfalls in der Kriegsgefangenbetreuung aktiv. Das erste Buch sollte auf Deutsch erscheinen, was 1933 aus politischen Gründen nicht mehr möglich war.
  9. ↑ Magdalene Philippine Caroline Auguste Erika Wilhelmine Freifrau von Steinaecker (geborene von Walsleben; 1880–?)