Wilma Abeles was born on 23 March 1921 in Mířkov by Horšovský Týn. Her father, Karel Abeles, was a prominent agricultural entrepreneur. She attended the German elementary school in Horšovský Týn before studying at the Czech grammar school in Domažlice. Wilma and her family fled the threat of the Nazis in 1938, immigrating from Czechoslovakia to Canada as part of a group of 39 Czech-Jewish extended family members led by her father. Together, the group settled in the Brantford area of Ontario, where they continued the tradition of farming that had been central to their lives in Czechoslovakia.

She studied at McMaster University in Hamilton (B.A.). Her studies continued at the University of Chicago, where she earned a PhD. In 1948 she married a Jewish émigré from Hamburg, George Iggers. Starting in 1950, she and her husband taught at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas. She also worked at the University Chicago (from where she graduated) and, as of 1965, she was appointed professor of German studies at Canisius College in Buffalo. She specialized in German and Czech literature and in the history of the Jews in the Czech Lands.

Since 1964, she was a member of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU), to which she delivered many lectures on Czech and German literature  in Bohemia, especially Jewish literature. At he turn of the century, she became a member of the Circle of the Friends of Czech-German Understanding. She published articles on similar themes in the periodicals East Central Europe and Zeitschrift für Ostforschung. Her article on Jaroslav Seifert was published in World Literature Today. In the 1990s, she worked for Review, the magazine of the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews in America, and later for Kosmas, the Central European history journal. She edited the English materials for Czech Dialogue, the magazine of the International Czech Club, free of charge.

Her scientific work focused on the coexistence of Czechs, Jews and Germans in Bohemia and Central Europe. Her major publications include Karl Kraus, A Viennese Critic of the Twentieth Century (1967), Die Juden in Böhmen und Mähren. Ein historisches Lesebuch (1986) and Women of Prague. Ethnic Diversity and Cultural Change from the Eighteenth Century to the Present (1995). Together with her husband, she wrote an autobiographical book Two Lives in Uncertain Times (2002).

In 2004, she received the Gratias Agit Award from the Minister of Foreign Affairs for her active contribution to Czech-German understanding and her voluntary work in improving Czech-German-Jewish relations. Throughout her life, Wilma Iggers remained an unwavering advocate for human rights, equality, and the pursuit of knowledge.