When alone, Hedwig Koh's eyes gaze perpetually into the past. Even as a child, she looked off into the distance: "I spent most of my childhood upstairs at the attic window, looking out at the view, imagining far away places."
Koh's eyes find yours, 101 years after they first opened, cornflower songs of experienced innocence. They've seen a lot in a century, but seem eager for more. "I need people and books," Koh declares, and the five or six German paperbacks littered across her bed, gifts from family and friends, bear testimony.
Koh was born in 1909, in Leipzig, Germany, the third of five daughters. A classically trained ballerina, Koh performed at age 16 at the Leipzig Opera House; a few years later, she met her future husband, Yukichi Koh, a talented young cellist from Japan, who was in Germany to attend the Leipzig Music Academy.