Remembering Miep Gies

A Righteous Gentile
Miep Gies helped to hide Anne Frank
May she rest in peace

As reported by the Washington Post:

Miep Gies, the last survivor of those who risked death to hide Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis, died Jan. 11 in the Netherlands. Ms. Gies had suffered a fall on Christmas, and her Web site said she died after a brief illness. She was 100.  … Gies was born into a working-class family in Vienna in 1909. As a child, her name was Hermine Santruschitz. During the first World War, food was scarce, and it was later feared that she might die. At the age of 11, a Dutch workers’ union helped bring her to the Netherlands to restore her health, and she made her home there.

After completing high school, she began working as an office assistant. In her early 20s, she was hired by Otto Frank and put in charge of a complaint desk.  After the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, she recognized the danger to people to whom she was close.  “We felt deep anxiety for our Jewish friends,” she wrote, and told of “special pangs of regret for the Franks, with their two young children.”  She was summoned to the German consulate, where she was asked about her refusal to join a Nazi girls’ group.  A German official said she would have to return to Vienna unless she married a Dutch citizen. She and Jan Gies had been close since 1930, and in 1941, they married. She became a Dutch citizen. Miep was a nickname.  Jan Gies, who was in the Dutch resistance, died in 1993. Ms. Gies is survived by a son and three grandchildren.

According to her Web site, it was less than a year after she married that Otto Frank told her of his plans to hide from the Nazis.  He asked whether she would assume the responsibility of caring for him, his family and those who would try to hide with them.  As she recounted later, her response was, “Of course.”

Gies was honored by Yad Vashem as one of the “Righteous Among The Nations“.  Although many consider her a hero, she said, “I am not a hero but did what seemed necessary at the time.”   You can learn more at the Miep Gies website.