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Hermine "Miep" Santrouschitz-Gies (born on February 15, 1909) is one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis during World War II and preserved Anne's diary to be published later.
She was evacuated to Leiden in the Netherlands from her city of birth, Vienna, in December 1920 to escape the food shortages caused by the end of the First World War, and moved with her foster family to Amsterdam in 1922. She met Otto Frank when she applied for the post of temporary secretary in his company, Opekta, in 1933. She initially ran the Complaints and Information desk in Opekta, and was eventually promoted to a more general administrative role. She became a close friend of his family as did her partner, Jan Gies (October 18,1905–January 26,1993) whom she married in July 1941 after she refused to join a Nazi women's association and was threatened with deportation back to Austria. Her knowledge of Dutch and German helped assimilate the Frank family into life in the Netherlands and Miep and Jan became regular guests at the Franks' home.
With her husband, and her colleagues Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman and Bep Voskuijl, Miep Gies helped hide the Frank family and four other people in the sealed-off back rooms of the company's office building on Amsterdam's Prinsengracht from July 1942 until they were betrayed by a Dutch informant on August 4,1944. After the raid on the hiding place, Miep found the discarded diaries of Anne Frank and saved them for Anne's return. Once the war was over and it was confirmed that Anne had perished in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, she handed the collection of papers and notebooks that made up the diary to the sole survivor of the family, Otto Frank, who arranged for the book's publication in 1947.
Once the book was published and widely translated, Miep and Jan became almost celebrity figures in Holland and their courage was recognised with awards from several international organisations, including the Raoul Wallenberg Award for Bravery and the Righteous Among the Nations award. In 1994 Miep received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, in 1995 the Yad Vashem medal, and in 1997 she was knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.
Her only child, Paul, was born on July 13, 1950.
Miep Gies still lives in Amsterdam.
See also
External links
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 Biography, Melissa Muller, foreword by Miep Gies, Bloomsbury 1999.
- The Footsteps of Anne Frank, Ernst Schnabel, Pan 1988.
- The Hidden Life of Otto Frank, Carol Ann Lee, Penguin 2002.