Preserving Anne Frank's Diary

“The Diary of Anne Frank,” which first appeared in Amsterdam in 1947 and published in English on April 30,1952 under the title “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl,” is one of the most widely read books in the world.

The young Jewish girl’s writings document the atrocities committed against her race by the Nazis, yet also expresses her belief in the goodness of humanity. It is through the help of a Dutch Catholic woman, Miep Gies, who hid Frank and her family and preserved Anne’s diary, that those writings see the light of day.

Born on Feb. 15, 1909 in Vienna, Austria, Gies was known for her generosity and kindness as a young child. Her Catholic family was poor and she herself was malnourished when food became scarce after World War I. Through the assistance of a relief project for Austrian children, her parents put 11-year-old Miep on a train to the Netherlands.
 

“Never have they uttered a single word about the burden we must be.”

Anne Frank

There the Nieuwenburg family took her in. When she was 18, Miep worked as a typist in an embroidery and pleating workshop. When the Nazis invaded the Netherlands a few years later, Miep lost her job. But her upstairs neighbor and Frank’s father, Otto Frank, offered her a job in his Opekta business, which traded in gelling agents with a base of fruit powder. Gies learned the jam making process and was soon promoted as the company’s first customer service representative.

Gies and her husband, Jan or “Hanke,” became familiar with the Frank family.

Gies returned the kindness the Frank family showed her when the Nazis came to call in her area. They devised a plan to hide the Frank family in a secret annex above Frank’s business.

Anne wrote about the couple’s kindness in her diary.

“Never have they uttered a single word about the burden we must be, never have they complained that we’re too much trouble,” she wrote in her diary. “They put on their most cheerful expressions, bring flowers and gifts for birthdays and holidays and are always ready to do what they can. That’s something we should never forget; while others display their heroism in battle or against the Germans, our helpers prove theirs every day by their good spirits and affection.” 

Receiving a tip from a betrayer on Aug. 4, 1944, Nazi police raided the hiding place and arrested Franks and others in hiding and two of their helpers in the attic and brought them to Gestapo headquarters in Amsterdam. All except Otto Frank died in Nazi extermination camps.  

After the arrest, Gies went to the secret annex to retrieve the belongings and discovered Frank’s writings on the floor and hid them in a desk, at the time hoping to return them to Anne.

When it was verified that Anne died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and Otto Frank, mourning his family, returned to Amsterdam after the war, Miep Gies reached into her desk drawer and pulled out the paper and notebooks in which Anne had written her diary. “Here,” she told Frank, “is your daughter’s legacy to you.”

The father published the diary in 1947. 

Gies wrote about her experiences in her memoir, “Anne Frank remembered,” which was published 1987. She wrote in the memoir, “I am not a hero,” and insisted the heroes were people like Anne Frank, who refused to let the end of her life snuff out the spirit of courage and hope through her diary.

The Dutch woman died at the age of 100 and is credited with helping the Frank family spend a few more years together and bringing a young girl’s vision of a better world to the world.

And Gies’ own name is literally “written in the stars.” In October 2009 The International Astronomical Union named an asteroid between the planets Mars and Jupiter “Miep Gies” to honor her.