Frederika “Fraka” Harmsen: Adventure Is in Her Blood
Frederika “Fraka” Harmsen was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. During World War II, when her father was just a young boy, her grandfather was part of an underground network that hid Jewish families and Dutch resistance fighters from Nazi troops to keep them safe. Harmsen says. “My mother, Ria, was older, about 19, and she was a nurse. She would visit patients on horseback, and she sometimes hid documents to protect some of them from capture by German soldiers.” Because of her family’s background, it is no wonder that “ Fraka Harmsen ” has seemingly lived a life of fearless adventure. She earned her private pilot’s license after being a passenger on a TWA jetliner that crashed and caught fire on a runway at Los Angeles International Airport in 1974 and has travelled the world on numerous research expeditions. She has also been an actress and has appeared on stage and television, and is a musician who plays numerous instruments. She has even been the lead singer and keyboard