Helga Hofmeier Edmonds is a Pensacola, FL. octogenarian whose 2013 autobiography offers insights on living through lean times, surviving catastrophe, and being an American.
She sailed to Japan as a ten-year-old, met Gen. MacArthur, survived Doolittle’s Raid and the nine-month U.S. firebombing campaign of Japan’s cities in 1945. She was a beautiful young German girl navigating war-torn WWII Tokyo.
Young Helga signed away two years of her life as maid and nanny for a U.S. Army colonel in exchange for paid passage out of war-torn Japan to California. Later, she married a U.S. military officer and became an American citizen.
Please see below photos and email us from the link at the top righthand section of this webpage if you would like a media review copy.
Hill may be reached at 828 785 2828. Helga may be reached through her Atlanta, GA. daughter, Jane Lang, at 404-281-0160.
Helga wearing her inheritance on her back sailing to America, 1948.Young Helga Edmonds and her daughter, Jane, 1951 news article from the Lafayette LA Advertiser.Helga on the kitchen steps of the family home in Uehara, Japan, 1944. It was burned to the ground six months later in the U.S. firebombing.Helga Hofmeier as a child in Munich, 1934, before boarding a ship to sail to Japan.Helga’s mother, Leonore, with Helga, 4, leaning against her grandmother, with Aunt Herzeltantchen, 1929, Munich.Helga Hofmeier Edmonds in 2011.Lafayette Advertiser news clip of Helga becoming a U.S. citizen, 1951.Book cover, Helga Hofmeier Edmonds, Helga: A Memoir of Privilege, War, and Family.Helga Hofmeier during WW II in Hakone, Japan with Fusako, her maid and friend.Helga Hofmeier, Hakone, 1947, enjoying china and coffee in war-torn Japan.Helga Hofmeier’s 1945 affidavit of identity, making her “legal” in Japan.Helga’s grandfather, Lt. Gen. Fritz Hofmeier, commander of the Prussian artillery,1918.Helga’s Japanese ID card, 1947 (the 22nd year of the emperor”).
