29 Facts About Fori Nehru

In 1947, following the partition of India, Nehru was the only female member on the Emergency Committee, to assist in the protection and transport of Muslims in Delhi who had sought refuge in the camps at Purana Qila and Humayun's Tomb.

Fori Nehru co-founded an employment campaign to sell stitched and embroidered works made by refugee women.

Fori Nehru accompanied her husband on his travels during his civil service career and between 1958 and 1968, she was present with him when he was appointed India's ambassador to the United States, was in London when he became high commissioner there, and is mentioned in several memoirs as a hostess.

Fori Nehru was noted to speak a high standard of Hindi and for always wearing a saree.

Fori Nehru, sometimes spelled Fory, and known as Auntie Fori, was born Magdolna Friedmann on 5 December 1908 in Budapest, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Fori Nehru's father, Armin Friedmann, had a seat somewhere between row three and five at the Dohany Street Synagogue and her mother Regina, nee Hirshfeld, was a member of the notable wealthy Bettelheim family, who made toys and earned the right to use the prefix von.

Fori Nehru was still a young school girl when the Red Revolution broke out in Hungary in 1919, following which she recalled that her father was on a committee, guarded the streets and regularly travelled to villages.

The year with the Fori Nehru family was a success and according to later recollections "the Fori Nehru family fell in love with her".

Fori Nehru's father survived with the help of his German housekeeper.

Fori Nehru's mother escaped from the Nazis, travelled to India the day before World War II broke out, and lived with Nehru in India throughout the war.

Fori Nehru's brother Joseph was an officer in the Hungarian army and survived with the assistance of his unit Captain.

Fori Nehru later escaped from Hungary by swimming across the Danube to Czechoslovakia.

Fori Nehru remained friends with Amrita's sister, Indira, and later helped translate several of her Hungarian letters for Vivan Sundaram's biography of Amrita.

That year, Fori Nehru became a member of the All India Handicrafts Board at the request of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay.

The Indian artist Anjolie Ela Menon recalled that post independence, Fori Nehru was one of a small group of women "who took it upon themselves to preserve and develop handicrafts and the handloom industry, without any remuneration".

In 1948, she was asked by Jawaharlal Fori Nehru to take care of the foreign diplomats at the funeral of Mahatma Gandhi.

Fori Nehru later said "I have a feeling of guilt,".

Fori Nehru visited Delhi in 1952 and was back in the US in 1953, using her time and influence there to promote Indian handicrafts.

Fori Nehru's samples included art from the Heritage crafts village Raghurajpur.

Between 1958 and 1968, as the wife of India's ambassador to the US, Fori Nehru would act as hostess.

Fori Nehru was noted to speak a high standard of Hindi and for always wearing a saree.

In 1976, Fori Nehru was one of a very few close to India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi that confronted her about the forces used during the Emergency.

In 1958 Fori Nehru met Martin Gilbert, a friend of her son Ashok from university days and later historian and official biographer of Winston Churchill.

Fori Nehru referred to the Nehru's as Auntie Fori and Uncle Birju, and until 1998 had no idea she was from Budapest's Jewish community.

Fori Nehru asked him to recommend a book about the history of Jews.

Fori Nehru died in Kasauli on 25 April 2017, at the age of 108.

Fori Nehru is frequently mentioned as a friend in biographies of Indira Gandhi, and in her husband's autobiography, Nice Guys Finish Second, as "a wife who gives direction and stability".

Gilbert's Letters to Auntie Fori Nehru are dedicated to her.

Fori Nehru was listed in John Kenneth Galbraith's dedications in his 1983 book The voice of the poor.