Blog post 10: Biography

The life of Helga Abild

Wanting to have a peaceful and memorable end to is probably the best goal you can have towards the end of your life. Especially if you have had such an adventurous and exciting life. Helga Abild was brought into this world on the 9^th of November, 1939 shortly before the war broke out. She was born in Madiun, Java as an only child. Helga’s father worked at a sugar factory in Purwodadi, a place near Madiun. Her mother was a housewife who looked after her.

Helga was born with quite an interesting mix of cultures. Her mother was German, her father was Danish and she was born in Indonesia. She grew up playing with Dutch and Javanese friends until the age of 6. Weekends were spent in a land rover or jeep driving up the mountains with her parents, where it was nice and cool.  Everything was good until the war came.

In the year 1945, war broke out in Indonesia. The Japanese came and took over, forcing Helga and her mum into a concentration camp, getting split up from her father. They were occupied there for quite some time until they were finally released when war with the Japanese ended. During the war time, there was not much food and not much to play with. So the only toy children had was the company of each other, so Helga had to play with friends. After the war ended everyone was free to go back to Europe. Which the Abild family did.

4 generations of one family in a picture. 

They travelled to Denmark, a whole new experience for such a little girl. She had to learn the Danish language there. They had time to recuperate from such a terrible time. Her parents had no job, but then eventually her father got a job in Denmark thanks to his family there. After some time in Europe, Helga’s father got homesick. Helga’s father really was in love with Java so for that reason, they moved back to Java. This time to Malang, where Helga stayed with her mother, whilst her father went back to Purwodadi to help rebuild the sugar factory.

Helga with Alexandra

There Helga attended a Dutch school from the age of 13 to 15. Then in the year 1954 all the Europeans had to leave Indonesia again. The Abild family went to Holland by cruise ship, which was quite an interesting experience for a 16 year old girl in a time like that!

Helga stayed in Holland and continued on with life there. She met her first husband there, Max Vos. She met him while she was working as a secretary in a contracting company in Gouda. They eventually got married and Helga had one child, Alexandra Vos at the age of 24. They had a long marriage until some less good events caused a divorce. He passed away a while later.

Helga on the left, Alexandra in the middle and Max on the right

Helga is now almost 75 years old and living a happy life in Holland sharing moments with friends and family. She has a positive outlook on the world and says that “Everybody makes mistakes in life, but hopefully in the end they may be forgiven”. Helga has had a very interesting life, and hopes that someday she can have a peaceful ending to her life.