Nina Langlet (1896–1988)

Nina Borovko-Langlet was a daughter of Nikolai Afrikanovich Borovko, a pioneering Esperantist in Russia. She trained as a musician and pianist in Russia and went to Sweden for further study. In 1925, she married Valdemar Langlet, a Swedish journalist and Esperantist who was a friend and colleague of her father. In 1931, they moved to Budapest, Hungary, where he taught Swedish at the University of Budapest and worked as an officer in the Swedish Legation. She worked as a piano teacher. During World War II, the couple saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis by providing them with protective documents in the name of the Swedish Red Cross. Raoul Wallenberg was inspired by the Langlets to use a similar method when he came to Budapest. The couple were expelled by the Russians after the war and returned to Sweden. Together they were named one of the Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Israel in 1965. Her memoir, Chaos in Budapest, originally was published in 1982.