Rest in peace…

…. I was saddened to hear the news today that Miep Gies had died. Having reached the grand old age of 100 one cannot be sad for a life cut short but more for the loss of someone who was both a remarkable individual and the last surviving link to one of the most important stories to emerge from the second world war.

If her name is not familiar her story will be. Miep, along with her husband and 3 work colleagues, aided two Jewish families to hide in Nazi occupied Holland. One of those families was the Frank family and the diary of their daughter Ann is a worldwide best seller. It was Miep who rescued Ann’s diaries, left behind when the family were finally discovered. She kept it safe, never reading it, until she was able to give it to Ann’s father Otto, the only one of the hidden group to survive the war. She went on to aid with the publication of the diary and to spend her life working educating young people all over the world about the horrors of the holocaust.

Two things in particular strike me when I think of her. Firstly that she was, in her own words, a very ordinary person… and yet faced with an unimaginably difficult and dangerous situation she stepped up to the plate and gave her all. In an interview many years later she said “I am afraid that if people feel that I am a very special person, a sort of heroine, they may doubt whether they will do the same I once did. Not many consider themselves very talented or courageous and thus would refrain from helping endangered people. This the reason that I want everyone to know that I am a very common and cautious woman and definitely not a genius or dare-devil.I did help like so many others who ran the same or more risk than me. It was necessary so I helped."
“It was necessary so I helped “… it sounds so simple when she puts it like that, yet in reality she was risking her life, she lived in great danger for two years as day by day she kept the families going. Whatever she may say I believe it was a remarkable and courageous gesture for which I admire her tremendously.

Secondly, I admire the respect and dignity she gave to Ann. Miep never appears to have treated Ann as a child, even though the others in the house did. She talked honestly with her about what was happening outside the house, after their capture she retrieved the diaries from the hiding place. She understood their significance but never read them, respecting Ann’s privacy. It was only when Ann’s father gave permission that she read them and, recognising their potential, worked to get them published. It was through Miep’s work that Ann’s dream of becoming a published writer came true – a final act of love to the young woman who had come to mean so much to her.

I will always be grateful to Miep for bringing Ann’s story to the world and to me. She said a few years ago that "It surely is a painful experience to be the only survivor of the eight people in hiding and their five helpers, I miss them dearly, because I can no longer exchange memories and no longer enjoy their friendship." I pray now that she is resting in peace and can once again be with those she loved.