Anne Frank and The Story of Miep Gies

Miep Gies, tiny, white-haired, gentle and courageous, is now 94 years old. An unfamiliar name to most people, but without this remarkable woman, there would be no The Diary of Anne Frank.

During the Nazi occupation of Holland the Austrian-born Dutch woman risked her life daily to hide Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis. For more than two years, Miep helped the Franks and four other people evade the Gestapo by bringing food, comfort and news of the world to them in a tiny hideout in the canal-side building that housed the family business.

It all ended on August 4, 1944, when their hiding place was betrayed and the family was arrested by the Nazis. A few hours later, wandering mournfully through the four small upstairs rooms, Miep discovered the plaid-cloth-covered diary kept by the young teenager.

By saving the diary from the debris left by the Nazis, Miep Gies made sure that Anne Frank’s name was known around the world. After the Bible, it is the most widely read book in the world - for many children, their first direct brush with the horrors of the Holocaust.

Ever since, Miep Gies has devoted her life to keeping the memory of her beloved friends alive. She is the only person mentioned in The Diary of Anne Frank who is still alive. Every year on August 4, she closes her curtains, ignores the doorbell, the telephone. Every year on August 4, Miep Gies grieves for her lost Jewish friends.