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THE AMERICAN-SC AN DIN A VI AN REVIEW 
despondent, of how the mere sight of her cheerful face and her warm, 
sincere handshake spread light and happiness in the gloomy prison 
barracks, where her presence never failed to comfort the sick and 
brffig a ray of sunshine to thousands of dying men who with their 
last breath blessed her name. It was her fortune that she was en¬ 
tirely free from sentimentality; like a man, she was able to overlook 
unimportant details and only consider the main points at issue, other¬ 
wise she could never have confronted the superhuman tasks which she 
carried out with such remarkable success. 
Of herself she never thought. In 1915 she contracted typhus 
in one of the camps in Stretensk; she was taken with high fever to 
Irkutsk and on a stretcher, at a temperature of 30° Celsius, carried 
from the railroad station to the hospital. After recovering she spent 
a short time in Sweden, but soon afterwards she again resumed her 
work in Russia and Siberia. In the fall of 1918 the Czecho-Slovaks, 
who at that time were in power in Siberia, for several weeks prevented 
her from carrying on her work, basing their objection on some un¬ 
founded political suspicion. At this time the news reached Sweden 
that she was imprisoned, and the storm caused by this rumor in news¬ 
papers of all colors plainly showed how beloved she was in her 
country. 
Fortunately Elsa Brandstrom had not been in danger. A Swede 
who for many years had visited Russia and was familiar with condi¬ 
tions in that country, has related how every one, even the communistic 
elements, stood by Elsa Brandstrom; nothing could ever happen to 
her. This same gentleman met her in Moscow in the summer of 1920, 
when at last she was on her way home to Sweden. In spite of all 
she had witnessed and all she had been through, she had remained her 
own self, bright and cheerful, alert and energetic. She was asked 
about the difficulties in obtaining food supplies in a certain city at one 
time, and she answered with her usual dry humor: 
“We had a good horse which we ate. And besides, dog meat is 
not bad either.” 
In July, 1920,. Elsa Brandstrom again returned to Sweden, 
greeted by the press and those who had the opportunity to get a 
glimpse of her at her arrival. With her usual modesty she withdrew 
from all publicity like a snail in its shell. I, myself, remember well her 
energetic refusal to allow me an interview when, in behalf of the 
paper I represented, I saw her the day after her arrival. 
“There is nothing to tell about me, nothing at all,” she repeated, 
“but you may say that a more terrible lot than that of the war prison¬ 
ers does not exist, and that we must not rest until we have succeeded 
in sending them all home.” 
Also in this work Elsa Brandstrom has later taken an active part, 
and it was only this purpose that finally induced her to appear as 
