My great-grandmother was Ilona Kinsky (1879-1968); she married Edgar Hoyos in Vienna in 1901. Ilona’s family came from Bohemia, and she spoke Hungarian as a child. Ilona’s sister, Norbetine Kinsky (1888 – 1923) was an Austrian Red Cross nurse in World War 1. She founded a hospital in Russia, and worked there before and during the Russian Revolution of 1917. At the age of 27 in 1916, she travelled to Siberia to visit and inspect prisoner-of-war and labour camps, where she met thousands of Austro-Hungarian and German prisoners of war. Her brother Zdenko Radoslav Kinsky (1896 – 1975) was taken prisoner in Russia at the same time. They both managed to return to Austria-Hungary in summer 1918. Nora wrote diaries, and Ra wrote his autobiography. Both their stories have been featured in books by other authors (see above).

Below I’ve attached an article about the Red Cross in Russia, 1914-1918.

Nancy Jennings