Edith Holländer is born on 16 January 1900 in Aachen (Germany). Ancestors of hers lived in Amsterdam at the beginning of the 18th century. They emigrated to Germany around 1800.

Edith’s father has a company dealing in machinery, scrap metal and old rags. Edith has two older brothers, Walter and Julius, and a sister, Betty (Bettina) who is two years older. Betty dies in 1914 of appendicitis. Edith goes to a girls’ high school and does her final exams in 1916. Little is known about her youth. Her brother fights in the German army in the First World War. He is shot in the arm, and suffers the effects of this wound for the rest of his life.