Last Living Anne Frank Helper, Miep Gies, Dies at 100

Associated press has reported today- January 12, 2010- that Miep Gies has died at the age of 100.

Miep Gies was one of 5 individuals who hid the Frank family in a secret annex at Otto Frank's spice factory for 25 months during World War II. She is the last surviving "helper" of the famous family.

She was born on February 15, 1909 in Vienna as Hermine Santrouschitz. She moved to Amsterdam in 1922 to escape the food shortages in Austria at the time. Her host family nicknamed her "Miep". In 1933, she began working for Otto Frank as an office assistant and married her Dutch boyfriend Jan Gies in 1941 to avoid deportation after refusing to join a Nazi organisation. In July 1942, Otto Frank asked Miep Gies to help hide his family in the annex above the company's canal-side warehouse on Prinsengracht 263 and to bring them food and supplies. She answered: "Yes, of course."

Acting on a tip that historians are still unable to trace, German police stormed into the office and raided the annex in August 1944. Miep then gathered all of Anne's books and papers, including the famous diary given her for her 13th birthday and in which she chronicled life leading up to and including in the annex from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944. Miep later said she refused to read the diary out of respect for Anne and also because doing so would have obligated her to burn it since it incriminated the "helpers". She gave it and Anne's other papers to Otto Frank when he returned as the only survivor of the family and assisted in bringing it to print in 1947.

Thereafter, Miep devoted her life to promoting causes of tolerance. She was bestowed, along with the four other helpers, with the "Righteous Gentile" title by the Israeli Holocaust museum Yad Vashem. She has also been honored by the German Government, Dutch monarchy and educational institutions. Still, she refused to be considered a hero. She said: "Imagine young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary." She also said: "This is very unfair. So many others have done the same or even far more dangerous work."

Indeed, the statistics now available back this up. Associated Press reports them thus: around 140,000 Jews lived in the Netherlands before the 1940-45 Nazi occupation. Of those, 107,000 were deported to Germany and only 5,200 survived. Some 24,000 Jews went into hiding, of which 8,000 were hunted down or turned in.

After the arrests of those in the annex, Miep courageously went to the police station to offer a bribe for the Franks' release, but they had already been shipped away. After the war, Otto Frank lived with the Gies family until he remarried in 1952.

"The Diary of Anne Frank" became the first popular book to deal with the Holocaust and has been read by millions in 65 languages. It remains the bestselling non-fiction book, excepting only the Bible.

Miep Gies is officially reported to have died after a brief illness. The British Broadcasting Corp. said she died in a nursing home after suffering a fall last month. Her husband, Jan Gies, died in 1993 and she is survived by a son and three grandchildren.

Source:
Associated Press, "Miep Gies, Who Helped Anne Frank, Dies: Office Secretary Provided Food, Other Necessities To The Jewish Family" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34814027/ns/world_news-europe//, msnbc.com.