[1][2][3] Born in Linköping on 16 April 1888, Elsa Andrea Elisabeth Björkman-Goldschmidt was the daughter of Maria (née Heyman), who was Jewish and army officer Daniel Magnus Fredrik Björkman.

Fellow students included Annie Bergman, Siri Derkert, Harriet Löwenhjelm, Ragnhild Nordensten, Gerda Nordling, and Elvi Tondén.

[1] In 1916, she travelled to Russia with her humanitarian friend Elsa Brändström to work an as untrained nurse in the Siberian prisoner-of-war camps.

She returned to Russia a number of times in subsequent years as a delegate of the Swedish Red Cross, experiencing the Russian Revolution.

After marrying in Vienna in 1921, they settled there and Elsa Björkman-Goldschmidt turned increasingly from art to writing, contributing columns to the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.