Remembering a Veteran: Nurse Nora, Countess Kinsky, Red Cross

Nora, Countess Kinksy

Biography

Nora, Gräfin Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau (1888–1923)  was the sixth of nine children of an Austro-Hungarian family. Baroness Bertha von Suttner, the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, was her paternal aunt. In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Countess Kinsky became a Red Cross nurse and founded a hospital. For her work with the wounded and her language skills, she was chosen as an official Red Cross visitor to the German prisoner-of-war camps in Russia, infamous for their miserable conditions and high mortality. She recorded these experiences in her diary. 

On her travels through Russia and Siberia, the countess visited 16 POW camp and 15 labor camps, where she assisted in surgeries and other medical interventions under the most primitive circumstances. She was an eyewitness to the Russian Revolution before her return home in 1918. 

She married Ferdinand, Graf Wilczek and gave birth to her first daughter in 1921. She died in childbirth in 1923, along with her second baby. The countess's journal was published as Russian Diary: 1916-1918, with an introduction by her daughter. A biography entitled I Have Lived Too Short: The Story of Nora Countess Kinsky, by Monica Czernin, was published in 2005 and a documentary film called The Countess and the Revolution: Nora Kinsky, the Red Cross Baroness, was made in 2007.

Excerpt from Russian Diary, 1916-1918

September 22, 1916

Spent the day at Skotowo with the officers. A lack of order and discipline that is heartrending. The camp is not far from the sea, with a very beautiful view, but the barracks are too little, there is too little room for the number of prisoners, which doesn’t contribute to their good humor. 

We are with the Russian officers, as we were not permitted to dine with our compatriots, and they gave us meat from animals with mad-cow disease. The soldiers here are well and the noncoms quite likeable, which pleased me. This hospital made a good impression; the head doctor, Dr. Möstl, a good Viennese, whom the sick seemed to like. I found the morale of the officers worse than that of the soldiers. It’s natural, since they suffer more from captivity. The lack of occupation is terrible for them. I was touched by their pleasure at our arrival and the gratitude the prisoners showed for the least effort on their behalf. They seemed completely to forget that it issimply my duty.

The officers who accompany us, the commander of the camp Sokolov and Colonel Markosov, are bland and repellent.

Sources: National World War One Museum; Library Thing