Honoring Miep Gies: The Story Behind the Diary

The world has lost a woman who quietly changed the way we read some of the most significant events in modern history.  On Moday, Miep Gies died after a brief illiness.  She was 100.  You may or may not be familiar with Miep Gies but you have surely heard her story. 

As a young Christian woman, Miep took a job as a secretary for a Jewish man named Otto Frank.  She quickly befriended Otto and his family.  That friendship led to great acts of selfless courage when the nazi's infiltrated the town and began searching for Jewish community members and sending them off to the camps.  Miep and several others, including her husband, hid Otto Frank, his wife, their two young daughters and four others in a room they called the "secret annex" in the building where Miep worked. 
For 25 months, Miep Gies made sure the "hiders" - as they were called - had food, water, and a connection to the outside world.  She made sure that young Anne Frank had notebooks, paper and the diary she had recieved for her 13 birthday to help pass the long days in the secret annex.

Miep put on a brave front, despite the risks to her own well-being, in the face of nazi threats.  When the nazi soldiers stormed the office building, finding and capturing the eight people in hiding, Miep bravely gathered all of Anne's papers and locked them away in her desk drawer for safe keeping.  She never read the diary, always respecting the young girl's privacy.

Seven of the eight friends Miep Gies helped to hide in the secret annex died in the nazi concentration camps.  Anne Frank, whose story speaks so personally to generations of readers, died at Bergen-Belsen at the age of 15, just two weeks before the camp was liberated.  Anne's father, Otto, was the only one of the eight to make it home.  Upon his return, Miep unlocked the drawer of her desk and gave him the papers she had so carefully and respectfully kept.

The diary of Anne Frank was published in 1947.  It's a  harsh reminder of what unchecked hatred and intolerance can grow into.  It's also a poignant story of bravery and friendship

Miep Gies spent much of her life speaking about tolerance while downplaying her own actions.  She refused to label herself a hero.  In 1997, she told a group of schoolchildren, "You don't have to be a hero to do your human duty or  I am afraid no one would ever grow up to help anyone else.  Who is a hero?  I was not.  I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary."

I am struck by her words, "I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary."  How many times have you prefaced thoughts of yourself by saying or thinking, "I am just a..."  Miep Gies reminds us that in our ordinary roles in our ordinary lives we can have an extraordinary impact.

While little will ever compare to the horrors of the holocaust, I am still baffled by our willingness to seperate ourselves in "us" verses "them" terms, over and over again.  Red versus blue, black versus white, east verses west, rich verses poor.  The divisions come so easily that in our own church we are divided over whether or not to accept and afford equal opportunities to others simply based on how we love.  Here's a radical thought, maybe it's time to close the divide.

God speed, Miep Gies, and many thanks for your example of unconditional love and tolerance that gave voice to a little girl, and so many others like her.

For more information visit http://www.miepgies.nl/.