Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family

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Hermine " Miep" Gies ( Dutch: [mip ˈxis]; [a] née Santrouschitz; 15 February 1909 [1] – 11 January 2010) was one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank, her family ( Otto Frank, Margot Frank, Edith Frank) and four other Dutch Jews ( Fritz Pfeffer, Hermann van Pels, Auguste van Pels, Peter van Pels) from the Nazis in an annex above Otto Frank's business premises during World War II. They discovered that Gies and her husband, Jan, had hidden more people than previously known, including two nurses. Because I could speak to them in German, and because I was originally from Vienna — in other words, because I was one of them and not an outsider — I was able to tell them the true story of what happened. I looked into the house, past a stairway landing, and saw heads of many children staring down at me. In that dark time of the war, we did not stand on the sidelines, but extended our hands to help others.

Aside from Otto himself, Gies arguably deserves the most credit for bringing Anne’s diary to a global audience. I'm so sorry for the Jewish people; those who endured the "worst" that could happen and those that live with its history. Every day, she saw trucks loaded with Jews heading to the railway station, en route to Nazi concentration camps.Like thousands of unsung heroes of the Holocaust, they risked their lives each day to bring food, news, and emotional support to the victims. This is a docu-story about the day to day life of the Dutch people under Nazi rule from the mouth of the woman whose family brought the Frank's, and the Franks' friends in the hiding place, their daily food and supplies throughout the entire Nazi occupation. We were all quite proud of this forward-looking treatment of ordinary working people: comfortable housing, indoor plumbing, tree-filled gardens in the rear of each block. Find signed collectible books: 'Meine Zeit mit Anne Frank: Der Bericht jener Frau, die Anne Frank und ihre Familie in ihrem Versteck versorgte, sie lange Zeit vor der Deportation . It was pitch-black, the middle of the night, when the train stopped and we were shaken awake and led off the train.

In addition to the daily care for the eight people in hiding (the Van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer joined the Frank family in the Secret Annex), the work for the company had to continue as normal as possible. At that point, Jan was working as a social worker with Social Services of the municipality of Amsterdam. She became a close, trusted friend of the Frank family and was a great support to them during the twenty-five months they spent in hiding. More than twenty thousand Dutch people helped to hide Jews and others in need of hiding during those years. Recently I visited, for the first time, the annex where the Franks' and their fellow friends in hiding spent around two years avoiding the persecution of the Nazis.

I recently watched “A Small Light” on Disney+ and was so intrigued by the story of Miep and the others who worked so hard to keep the inhabitants of the secret annex safe. Gies was interviewed about her memories of hiding the Frank family for the 1995 documentary film Anne Frank Remembered by Jon Blair. But then, on Friday morning 4 August 1944, Dutch police officers, headed by SS-Hauptscharführer Karl Josef Silberbauer, unexpectedly raided Prinsengracht 263. I then got hold of Miep Gies' book - she being the one who looked after all eight occupants in the annex during those years. A few days later, Gies walked into the Gestapo’s local headquarters and attempted to bribe Karl Silberbauer, the SS officer in charge, to free those he’d arrested.

Seller shipped immediately but the book took over half a month to arrive, due to the carrier used on the first leg, to get the package to USPS.When you've read her book, you'll realise that this unassuming, principled, wise and humane woman was precisely that - a real hero.