Miep Gies, back in the day.
Posted on 01/11/2015 12:07:41 PM PST by iowamark
Miep Gies, the last survivor among Anne Frank’s protectors and the woman who preserved the diary that endures as a testament to the human spirit in the face of unfathomable evil, died Monday night, the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam said. She was 100.
The BBC said Mrs. Gies suffered a fall late last month and died at a nursing home.
“I am not a hero,” Mrs. Gies wrote in her memoir, “Anne Frank Remembered,” published in 1987. “I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did and more — much more — during those dark and terrible times years ago, but always like yesterday in the heart of those of us who bear witness.”
Mrs. Gies sought no accolades for joining with her husband and three others in hiding Anne Frank, her father, mother and older sister and four other Dutch Jews for 25 months in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. But she came to be viewed as a courageous figure when her role in sheltering Anne Frank was revealed with the publication of her memoir. She then traveled the world while in her 80s, speaking against intolerance. The West German government presented her with its highest civilian medal in 1989, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands knighted her in 1996.
When the Gestapo raided the hiding place in the annex to Otto Frank’s business office on Aug. 4, 1944, and arrested its eight occupants, it left behind his daughter Anne’s diary and her writings on loose sheets of papers. The journals recounted life in those rooms behind a movable bookcase and the hopes of a girl on the brink of womanhood. Mrs. Gies gathered up those writings and hid them, unread, hoping that Anne would someday return to claim them...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
God bless her and hold her dear.
Five years ago but I just became aware of this passing.
This was five years ago.
Righteous Among the Nations.
I had no idea she was still alive. This was a courageous woman who chose to get involved, not just watch safely from a dark corner. I hope to have a fraction of such courage and love for humanity if my name is ever called to serve in such a way.
http://teacher.scholastic.com/frank/miep.htm
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Miep_Gies.html
http://www.annefrank.org/en/Anne-Frank/All-people/Miep-Gies/
She passed five years ago.
Good for her.
Should be noted that not all Dutch people met this high standard. Over 75% of the Jews of the Netherlands died, a high percentage for western Europe.
This is to a considerable extent because the Dutch civil administration kept running smoothly during the war, making the Nazis job of tracking Jews down easier. There was considerable collaboration by bureaucrats, cops and the general population.
The Nazis of course viewed the Dutch as perfectly good Aryans so weren't oppressing them in the same way as they did the Poles.
To be fair, the Dutch also had an unusually large number of people who risked their lives to help Jews.
IOW, the Dutch had an unusually large number of heros and villains.
Wow! Even though it was five years ago I’m still shocked.
Sad.
RIP, Miep. You had a wonderful heart. May you enjoy Heaven.
The arresting force were mostly Dutch police, lead by a Nazi cop.
On the Fifth Anniversary of her passing, another donation to The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous www.jfr.org. RIP
You have identified the indelible shame of the occupied countries. The Nazis would never have achieved the “success” they did in exterminating European Jewry without the meticulous civil record keeping providing the identities and locations of all Jews and the enthusiastic support of civil authorities in rounding them up for deportation.
The truth is that the governments of the occupied countries were all too happy to help the Germans get rid of their Jews. Those pogroms had just gotten so tedious.
Not every country. Notably Denmark. And certainly not all officials. But way too many just kept “doing their job” in a time when doing so meant collaborating with great evil.
To be fair, it’s easy for you and me to sit around and criticize those who went along to get along, and in many cases to just survive, when we don’t ourselves face similar dangers.
To my mind, only those who have resisted evil at great risk have a real right to condemn those who don’t. Surprisingly, in my experience most of those who have this right don’t use it.
I hope I would be one of the heroes, if I’m ever in a similar situation. But I won’t really know until I’m there.
Beautiful lady, beautiful heart.
Thank you for posting this. I had no idea she lived so long or that she had passed. What an inspiring story of human courage and compassion in a world that seems hopelessly lost.
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