Anne Frank's Story

Title

Anne Frank's Story

Description

HOME 

One famous and amazing story of heroism which occurred during the horrible days of Nazi oppression and genocide involved Miep Gies.  Miep Gies insists that she is not a hero, but this story suggests otherwise.[1]  An innocent girl and her family, refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, trying to avoid a horrendous fate in the evil torture camps purposed to dehumanize and kill a race of people and those who opposed the Nazis.  In the summer of 1942, Margot Frank, Anne Frank’s sister received a postcard demanding she report to Germany for forced labor, requiring her to leave her family in the Netherlands, her home-country.[2]  With this news, the Frank family chose to hide out.  Miep Gies and her family helped Margot first.  On a very rainy day, Miep and Margot rode their bikes−illegal bikes (it was illegal for Jews to own bikes by decree of the Nazis) − to the hideout that would become known as the Anne Frank House.  This was actually office space of housing two small rooms the Frank’s hid in.  Miep Gies fed and informed the Franks of what was occurring in the outside world.  Anne Frank desperately sought information about her friends, but little was available and dangerous to seek.  Miep Gies did what she could to comfort and assist the Franks in this terrible time.  The heroism of Miep is most apparent when you consider this passage in her book, Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family: “About the only way a Jew was seen now was floating face down in a canal.  Sometimes Jews were thrown there by the very people who had hidden them . . . .”  The concentration camp danger was as threatening to helpers as it was to Jews.  Miep Gies did not go to a concentration camp though.  However, on August 4, 1944, Anne Frank and her family were found by a Nazi and were sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.  Anne Frank died, apparently of starvation shortly afterward.[3]


[1] Miep Gies and Alison Leslie Gold, Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 11.

[2] Gies and Gold, Anne Frank Remembered, 93.

[3] Gies and Gold, Anne Frank Remembered, 193-199.

Local URL

http://deliveredfromevil.omeka.net/admin/items/show/4

Files

Miep Gies.jpg
imagesCAQ7CZ9B.jpg
Date Added
April 16, 2014
Item Type
Website
Citation
“Anne Frank's Story,” Delivered From Evil, accessed April 29, 2024, https://deliveredfromevil.omeka.net/items/show/4.