Miep Gies, the office secretary who defied the Nazi occupiers to hide Anne Frank and her family for two years and saved the teenager's diary, has died Monday after a brief illness. She was 100.
Gies was the last of the helpers who supplied food, books and good cheer to Anne, her parents, sister and four other Jews who hid in a secret annex, behind a warehouse, for 25 months during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands in World War II.
Miep Gies
After the German police raided the annex, Gies gathered up Anne's scattered notebooks and papers and locked them in a drawer for her return after the war. The diary, which Anne Frank received as a present from her father on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life in hiding from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944. After the end of the war, Gies gave the diary to Anne's father Otto, the only member of the family to survive the Holocaust. Otto published his daughter’s diary in 1947.
After publication of the diary made her a household name, Gies tirelessly promoted causes of tolerance. In typical Dutch style, Gies brushed aside the accolades for helping hide the Frank family as more than she deserved.
"This is very unfair. So many others have done the same or even far more dangerous work," she wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press days before her 100th birthday last February.
For her courage, Gies was bestowed with the "Righteous Gentile" title by the Israeli Holocaust museum Yad Vashem. She has also been honored by the German Government, Dutch monarchy and educational institutions.
In spite of her obvious heroic actions, Gies resisted being made a character study of heroism.
"I don't want to be considered a hero," Gies said in a 1997 interview.
"Imagine young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary."
In spite of her modesty, Gies was in fact a hero of uncommon proportions. The Nazi occupation of the Netherlands was particularly brutal and ruthless. The penalty for helping Jews was either death, or a one-way trip to the Nazi death camps.
At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the Netherlands declared itself neutral as it had done during World War I. In spite of its declaration of neutrality, on May 10, 1940 Germany invaded the Netherlands.
Initially, the German forces faced little resistance; their advance, however, was eventually slowed by the Dutch army. At the Afsluitdijk, the Grebbeberg, Rotterdam and Dordrecht the Dutch army offered strong resistance. A German airborne landing at The Hague, intended to capture the Dutch royal family and the government, failed, and about 1,000 of the paratroopers and airlanding troops that had not been killed were captured and shipped to Britain.
On May 14 the Germans demanded the surrender of the city of Rotterdam, threatening to bomb the city. Surrender was agreed upon with Dutch and German forces, with the Dutch intention of protecting its own civilians. The German Luftwaffe, however, proceeded to bomb Rotterdam reducing the city to rubbles and killing thousands of civilians, including the elderly, women and children.
Rotterdam After The Bombing
After this bombardment, the German military command threatened to bomb the city of Utrecht as well if the Netherlands did not immediately surrender. The Dutch army, with the exception of the forces in Zeeland, formally capitulated on May 15. The Zeeland forces resisted for a few more days, until the bombardment of Middelburg on May 17, forced the Zeeland forces to surrender as well.
The German invasion of the Netherlands resulted in 2,300 dead, and 7,000 wounded Dutch soldiers and the deaths of over 3000 civilians.
Shortly after the invasion, the German military regime began to persecute the Jews of the Netherlands. In 1940, there were no deportations and only small measures were taken against the Jews. In February 1941, the Nazis deported a small group of Dutch Jews to the concentration camp Mauthausen. The Dutch reacted with the February strike as a nationwide protest against the deportations – this strike was unique in the history of Nazi-occupied Europe. Although the strike did not accomplish much of what it had set out to accomplish (its leaders were executed) it was a major setback for the puppet government of Seyss-Inquart - he had planned to both deport the Jews and to win the Dutch over to the Nazi cause.
As a reaction to the February strike, the Nazis installed that same month a Jewish Council. The Council was made up of a board of Jews who were told by the Nazis that they were helping the Jew, when in fact the Council was a Nazi tool to send Jews to the death camps.
Beginning in May 1942, the Nazi leaders ordered Dutch Jews to wear the Star of David. Around the same time the Roman Catholic Church of the Netherlands publicly condemned the actions of the Nazi government by way of a letter read at all Sunday parish services. Thereafter, the Nazi government treated the Dutch more harshly: notable socialists were imprisoned, and, later in the war, Roman Catholic priests, including Titus Brandsma, were deported to concentration camps.
Approximately 140,000 Jews lived in the Netherlands prior to 1940. Of those, 107,000 were deported to Germany, where only 5,200 survived eventually survived. Some 24,000 Dutch Jews went into hiding, of which 8,000 were hunted down or turned in.
In order to escape Nazi persecution, Jews were forced to hide in the homes of non-Jewish Dutch. To stop the Dutch from helping Jews, the Nazi government imposed harsh penalties, including the death penalty on any Dutch citizen accused of helping Jews. The Nazis imposed other harsh measures against the Dutch people.
As food and many other goods were taken out of the Netherlands, rationing (with ration cards) became a way by which the Nazis controlled the Dutch population. Anyone who violated German laws, such as hiding or hiding another, automatically lost his or her food ration.
Despite the risks (one-third of the people who hid Jews did not survive the war) many Dutch people continued to help the Jews.
In typical Dutch modesty, Miep Gies may not have considered herself a hero. But to the millions of people who were inspired (and continue to be inspired) by her courage in the face of grave personal danger, Miep was not just a hero – she represented the very essence of what is kind and noble in the hearts of all good men and women. .
Rest in peace sweet, brave lady.
(Editor’s Note): The story of Anne Frank, the brave, young Jewish girl who was forced to hide with her family to escape Nazi persecution, only to eventually die in a death camp (along with her sister and mom) has always been a source of inspiration for me. Reading Anne Frank’s diary, I could follow Anne’s transformation – from little 13 year old girl, concerned with the typical worries of a young teenager to an almost-woman documenting the destruction of the world she knew and loved. In spite of the horrors surrounding her situation, Anne never lost her humanity – although she was certainly entitled to it, she never descended into self-pity or despair.
Photographs of Anne, depict her as a typical, almost plain girl. To me, however, she was beautiful and her transformation, as documented in her own words, gave her wings to soar, like a lovely butterfly.
Anne Frank
There is another reason why Anne Frank has special significance for me. As a “would-be” writer, but more importantly, as a thinking, feeling individual, I can identify with (and take inspiration from) this passage from Anne’s diary, written on Wednesday, April 5, 1944:
“I finally realized that I must do my schoolwork to keep from being ignorant, to get on in life, to become a journalist, because that’s what I want! I know I can write ..., but it remains to be seen whether I really have talent ...
And if I don’t have the talent to write books or newspaper articles, I can always write for myself. But I want to achieve more than that. I can’t imagine living like Mother, Mrs. van Daan and all the women who go about their work and are then forgotten. I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! ...
I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death! And that’s why I’m so grateful to God for having given me this gift, which I can use to develop myself and to express all that’s inside me! When I write I can shake off all my cares. My sorrow disappears, my spirits are revived! But, and that’s a big question, will I ever be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?”
More beautiful, and inspiring words have never been written.
Thank you Anne!
