Miep Gies and Anne Frank Remembered

Over breakfast this morning I sat down to watch the first hour of a BBC programme Anne Frank Remembered.  (For those in the UK, the iplayer link is here.)  It had been broadcast last night on BBC4.  Little did I realise that Miep Gies had died that day.  Gies, of course, was one of the few people who helped the Frank family and others to hide from the Nazis in Amsterdam during the second World War.  It was she who found the diary after the Franks had been caught.

There is an obituary of this remarkable woman in the Daily Telegraph here.

Just after 40 minutes into Anne Frank Remembered there is one scene where Miep Gies meets, for the first time, Peter Pfeffer, the son of the dentist who also hid in the attic.  It has to be the most moving greeting between two people that I have ever seen.  Pfeffer died of cancer not long after the meeting.

She is sadly no longer with us, but Miep Gies leaves behind an example of what it is to be good.

Comments

[Dorte H]

A remarkable story.

If you have time, you should notice my bait-in-the-box post from today ;)

[Norm]

Miep Gies was a righteous person and one of many unsung heroes of those years.
We must never forget the Holocaust, or the terrible events that have incredibly occurred since then in Cambodia, Darfur, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. I cry when I read about wonderful people like Miep Gies, but get very angry when I see Nazi-like fanaticism in the eyes of certain politicians and various protestors.

[Bernadette in Australia]

Miep Gies' book about that time made for utterly fascinating reading - a different take than Anne Frank's obviously but totally compelling. One of life's many unsung heroes.

[Margot Kinberg]

You are so, so right about Miep Gies. She truly deserves the often-overused moniker "hero."

[Chrystal K.]

What a story...May she rest in peace.