Elsa Brändström (
March 26,
1888 -
March 4,
1948), born in
St. Petersburg, was the daughter of General Edvard Brandstrom, the
Swedish Ambassador to Czar
Nicholas the Second of Russia during
World War I. She, gazing down from the window of the Embassy in St. Petersburg, Russia onto German prisoners of war on their way to the frozen tundra of Siberia, was moved to leave the luxury of diplomatic life, and became a nurse, ministering to the prisoners of war in Siberia, in part privately, in part as a delegate of the Swedish Red Cross and with the protection of the Swedish and Danish embassy authorities. The prisoners of war benefited tremendously from her attentions, and named her “The Angel of Siberia.” After the war, she attended the orphans of the German soldiers who had been killed and the Russian prisoners of war. She married
Robert Uhlig[?], and moved to Germany where she served among the destitute. When
Hitler rose to power, Elsa and her husband were forced to flee from Germany and came to America, where she and her husband offered care to European refugees. Her husband took up teaching at
Harvard University. She died in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.