Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank and her family, receiving the Wiesenthal Center’s Righteous Among the Nations Award in Los Angeles on May 12, 1994, from Rabbi Marvin Hier, the center’s founder and dean, and actress Whoopi Goldberg. (Photo: Bart Bartholomew / Simon Wiesenthal Center)
Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank and her family, receiving the Wiesenthal Center’s Righteous Among the Nations Award in Los Angeles on May 12, 1994, from Rabbi Marvin Hier, the center’s founder and dean, and actress Whoopi Goldberg. (Photo: Bart Bartholomew / Simon Wiesenthal Center)The New York Times published a touching tribute to Miep Gies, the Righteous Gentile who sheltered Anne Frank and her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Gies died Monday night at the age of 100.
The Times story, written by Richard Goldstein, noted:
Mrs. Gies sought no accolades for joining with her husband and three others in hiding Anne Frank, her father, mother and older sister and four other Dutch Jews for 25 months in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. But she came to be viewed as a courageous figure when her role in sheltering Anne Frank was revealed with the publication of her memoir. She then traveled the world while in her 80s, speaking against intolerance. The West German government presented her with its highest civilian medal in 1989, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands knighted her in 1996.
The Washington Post’s coverage of Gies’ death includes the video of a 1988 interview with Harry Smith of CBS News, who spoke with Gies and actress Mary Steenburgen about the made-for-TV film, The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank.
There is more about Miep Gies, and the life and legacy of Anne Frank, on the Web site of The Anne Frank Center USA.
