Miep Gies(1909 — 2010)
Miep Gies
Royaume des Pays-Bas
8 min read
Miep Gies (1909-2010) was a Dutch office worker of Austrian origin who hid Anne Frank and her family in the Secret Annex in Amsterdam from 1942 to 1944. After their arrest by the Gestapo, she gathered Anne Frank's notebooks and kept them safe, making their worldwide publication possible.
Frequently asked questions
Famous Quotes
« I am not a hero. I simply did what any decent person would have done.»
Key Facts
- 1909: Born in Vienna (Austria)
- 1933: Hired by Otto Frank in Amsterdam
- July 1942 – August 1944: Hides Anne Frank and seven others in the Secret Annex
- 4 August 1944: Arrest of those in hiding by the Gestapo; Miep retrieves Anne's diaries
- 1987: Publication of her memoir, 'Anne Frank Remembered', translated into 30 languages
- 2010: Death at age 100 in the Netherlands
Works & Achievements
After the Frank family's arrest, Miep gathered Anne's notebooks from the floor of the Annex and kept them in her desk until Otto Frank's return. Without this decisive act, one of the most widely read accounts in the history of the Second World War would never have existed.
For more than two years, Miep Gies supplied, protected, and offered moral support to eight people in hiding at 263 Prinsengracht, risking her freedom and her life every day in a quiet but essential act of civil resistance.
In this book co-written with Alison Leslie Gold, Miep Gies recounts the two years of hiding and the daily lives of those who helped. Translated into many languages, it has become an indispensable companion volume to Anne Frank's Diary.
Miep Gies contributed her filmed testimony to this documentary directed by Jon Blair, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1996, bringing her first-hand account to millions of viewers around the world.
Anecdotes
On August 4, 1944, after the Gestapo arrested the Frank family, Miep Gies and her colleague Bep Voskuijl went up to the Annex and found Anne's notebooks scattered on the floor. Miep gathered them without reading them and kept them in her desk drawer, hoping to return them to Anne after the war.
Miep attempted to bribe the Dutch SS officer who had carried out the arrest, offering him money in exchange for the Franks' freedom. He flatly refused. She herself was not arrested that day, perhaps because the officer recognized her Viennese accent — he himself being originally from Austria.
For more than two years, Miep quietly purchased unusually large quantities of food, spreading her shopping across several stores to avoid arousing suspicion. She used ration coupons belonging to several people to feed the eight people in hiding in the Annex, risking her life with every errand.
When Otto Frank, the sole survivor of the family, returned from the camps in July 1945, Miep handed him Anne's notebooks without ever having read them, out of respect for what she considered a private life. She would later say: “I had no right to read what she had written.”
In 1994, during a visit to a Dutch school, students asked Miep whether she considered herself a hero. She replied: “I am not a hero. I did what any decent person should have done.” This humility made her all the more precious as a witness to History.
Primary Sources
Miep brings us books, takes care of the shopping, and always asks how we are doing. She brings cheerfulness and lightness every time she comes up to see us, even for a brief moment.
Every day I cycled across Amsterdam to bring food, news, and above all, hope. I could not imagine doing otherwise. These people were counting on us and we could not abandon them.
When I found the notebooks on the floor after the arrest, I picked them up without thinking. I wanted to save whatever could be saved. I still thought Anne would come back and that I would be able to return them to her.
Miep gave me Anne's diary as soon as I returned. She had kept it carefully throughout that entire period without reading it, out of respect for Anne. Without her, this testimony would never have existed.
Key Places
It was in the rear building of this house, which hosted the Opekta company, that Miep Gies helped hide Anne Frank and seven other people from July 1942 to August 1944. The site is now the Anne Frank House, a museum visited by more than one million people each year.
Hermine Santrouschitz, the future Miep Gies, was born in Vienna on February 15, 1909. At the age of eleven, she was sent to the Netherlands to recover from the malnutrition that had taken hold in Austria after the First World War, and she never returned.
It was in this Dutch university town that the young Miep was taken in by a foster family in 1920. There she learned Dutch and developed the deep attachment to the Netherlands that shaped her entire life.
Miep and her husband Jan lived in Amsterdam throughout the war. It was from their apartment that she organized the daily supply of food and necessities for those in hiding, all while leading an outwardly ordinary life so as not to attract attention.
