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| File:Miep Gies, 1945.jpgMiep Gies, 1945 | |
| Born | (1909-02-15) February 15, 1909 (age 115) Vienna, Austria |
| Occupation | Humanitarian |
| Spouse | Jan Gies (1941-1993) |
Miep Gies (born February 15,1909) is one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis during World War II. She discovered and preserved Anne's diary after Anne Frank's arrest and deportation.
Miep Gies was born with the name Hermine Santrouschitz in 1909 in Vienna, Austria. An Austrian by birth, she had to leave her family for economic reasons. She was sent to Leiden, Netherlands, as part of a relief program to help malnourished children. She lived there with a "host family," whom she grew to love very much. They gave her the name Miep, feeling Hermine was too formal. In 1922, she moved with her adopted family to Amsterdam.
In 1933, Miep heard about an opening for a job as an office assistant for Otto Frank, a Jewish gentleman who had just moved to Amsterdam from Frankfurt. Miep took the job and became good friends with Otto, his wife Edith Frank, and their daughters, Margot Frank and Anne. The treatment of Jews in Holland — and all of Nazi-occupied Europe — continued to worsen. In 1942, Otto Frank informed Miep that he and his family were going into hiding. Though she could be severely punished for helping to hide Jews, Miep immediately offered her support.
On July 5, Margot Frank received a summons to report to a forced-labor camp. Otto Frank told Miep that the family will have to go into hiding the next day. Miep escorted Margot to the "Secret Annex," a building to the rear of Otto Frank's place of business. Later that morning she slipped Otto, Edith, Margot and Anne into the Annex. The Van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer, Miep's dentist, later joined the Franks in hiding.
For two years, Miep Gies supplied those in hiding with part of her food rations, news from the outside, and most importantly, friendship. Anne was quite fond of Miep and often wrote about her in her diary.
Dutch and German police raided the Secret Annex on August 4, 1944, arresting those in hiding. Miep was questioned by an officer about her involvement in the plot. Miep avoided arrest because the officer, who came to question her, was Austrian and because her home country was also from Vienna, Austria, felt a connection to her. Later, Miep unsuccessfully tried to bribe the Austrian Nazi officer with money in exchange for releasing her friends.
In 1950, she gave birth to her only child, Paul Gies.
She has continued her humanitarian work since then. Her husband Jan Gies died in 1993 from Diabetes.
Gies currently lives in the Dutch province of Noord-Holland.
External links
- Miep Gies at IMDb
- Quicktime movie. Miep Gies, in her former office at 263 Prinsengracht, talks about the war years
- Quicktime movie. Miep Gies remembers how she met Anne Frank
- Profile of Miep Gies by the Anne Frank House
- 1998 interview with Miep Gies
- Image of Miep's wartime identity card
- Photo of Miep and Jan Gies, Bep Voskuijl, Victor Kugler taken in 1970s
Further reading
- The Diary of Anne Frank: The Revised Critical Edition, Anne Frank, edited by David Barnouw and Gerrold Van der Stroom, translated by Arnold J. Pomerans, compiled by H. J. J. Hardy, second edition, Doubleday 2003.
- Anne Frank Remembered, Miep Gies with Alison Leslie Gold, Simon and Schuster 1988.
- Roses from the Earth: the Biography of Anne Frank, Carol Ann Lee, Penguin 1999.
- Anne Frank: the Bioggraphy, Melissa Muller, afterword by Miep Gies, Bloomsbury 1999.
- The Footsteps of Anne Frank, Ernst Schnabel, Pan 1988.
- The Hidden Life of Otto Frank, Carol Ann Lee, Penguiniey 2002.