Miep Gies, Protector of Anne Frank, Dies at 100 (January 12, 2010)
Times Topics: Anne Frank
"I am not a hero," insisted Miep Gies. "I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary." It was Mrs. Geis's habit to deflect accolades for defying Nazi occupiers of Amsterdam by helping to hide Anne Frank, her family and three other doomed Jews in a secret annex to the business office of Anne's father, Otto Frank.
Mrs. Gies, who died on Monday at age 100, was a trusted employee of Otto Frank in 1942. His family went into hiding that year in unused rooms that were hidden behind a movable bookcase, seeking to avoid the fate of thousands of Dutch Jews being deported to concentration camps. Asked by Mr. Frank to help hide them, and to bring them food and supplies, she readily agreed, even though it meant risking her life.
Working with her husband, Jan Gies, a member of the Dutch resistance, and three other employees of Mr. Frank's business, she provided books, emotional support and nourishment. She traveled on her bicycle to spread her food purchases among different grocers in order to avoid suspicion. After the Gestapo raided the hiding place in August 1944, Mrs. Gies made a bold but unsuccessful attempt to bribe Gestapo officials to spare the lives of the eight arrested Jews. She is owed the world's debt for preserving Anne's diary, which she hid unread in the hope that its young author would survive and return to claim it.
Mrs. Gies was the last surviving member of Anne Frank's protectors. Their collective story is an enduring reminder that human beings always have a choice, even when millions were acceding to unspeakable evil.
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