Rest in peace Miep

ScottM

ScottM

Taxi to Parking
Joined
Jul 19, 2005
Messages
42,530
Location
Variable, but somewhere on earth
Display Name
Display name:
iBazinga!
She was a righteous person.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20100111/eu-netherlands-obit-miep-gies/

Miep Gies, the office secretary who defied the Nazi occupiers to hide Anne Frank and her family for two years and saved the teenager's diary not, has died, the Anne Frank Museum said Tuesday. She was 100. Gies' Web site reported that she died Monday after a brief illness. The report was confirmed by museum spokeswoman Maatje Mostar, but she gave no details. The British Broadcasting Corp. said she died in a nursing home after suffering a fall last month.
Gies was the last of the few non-Jews who supplied food, books and good cheer to the secret annex behind the canal warehouse where Anne, her parents, sister and four other Jews hid for 25 months during World War II.
After the apartment was raided by the German police, Gies gathered up Anne's scattered notebooks and papers and locked them in a drawer for her return after the war. The diary, which Anne Frank was given on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life in hiding from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944.
Click to expand...


And she was classy too!

Gies refused to read the papers, saying even a teenager's privacy was sacred.
Click to expand...
 
A fine woman, a genuine hero, and one of history's greatest examples of righteous civil disobedience. May she enjoy her reward.

-Rich
 
How does one quantify the scale of courage and character of such a person?

This would be a person whom I never met, and for whom I can honestly shed a tear.
 
If you have never visited the house on Princsengracht I highly recommend that you make it one of the must visit places before you die. A very moving place and very much as it was then. I was there a couple of years ago and had hoped to visit again this summer.
 
smigaldi said:
If you have never visited the house on Princsengracht I highly recommend that you make it one of the must visit places before you die. A very moving place and very much as it was then.
Click to expand...

+1

There was a line to visit when I was there. Nothing remarkable about the time of year, just a place that people want to see. Or maybe it was a need to see. I'm not much of a tourist but still made the effort to go when I could have been eating, drinking, and wenching instead.
 
You know those lists people make of "if I could invite 10 interesting people to dinner..."?

She'd be one. RIP, Miep.
 
SCCutler said:
How does one quantify the scale of courage and character of such a person?
Click to expand...

No clue. It's somewhere way way off scale compared to anything we're use to nowadays.

This would be a person whom I never met, and for whom I can honestly shed a tear.
Click to expand...

Agreed. She has my highest respect...which simply isn't enough.


If you want to shed another tear, if you get a chance go see the live theatre production of The Diary of Anne Frank. All the characters are there including Miep Gies and you get a sense of the confinement and what they went through even though it's edited for time to be presentable as a performance.
The audience reaction: Scattered sniffles and muted crying by intermission. Not a dry eye in the house by the end of the show. Be warned though, the last scene with Otto alone on the stage will knock the wind out of you. Very powerful stuff.
 
It's encouraging to know you can be so good and so brave and yet still live to be 100.
 
+1. And if you get the chance, go. I've been there a couple of times and it has to be experienced. Much better than just reading about it.

Quite a brave woman.

RIP
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top