"We will never forget your kindness, thank you"
The office secretary who defied the Nazi occupiers of the Netherlands to help hide Anne Frank and her family for two years has died, the Anne Frank Museum announced today.
Born Hermine Santrouschitz on 15 February 1909 in Vienna, Austria, Gies moved to Amsterdam in 1922 to escape food shortages. She lived with a host family, who gave her the nickname Miep.
Gies was the last survivor of the few non-Jews who supplied food, books and company at the secret annexe, above an Amsterdam canal warehouse, where Anne, her parents, her sister and four other Jews hid for 25 months during the second world war.
After the annexe was raided by the German police, gathered Gies Anne's notebooks and papers and locked them in a drawer.
The teenager's diary, which she was given on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life in hiding from 12 June 1942 until 1 August 1944.
Gies refused to read the books and papers, saying that Anne's privacy was sacred ....
... read more about at: The Guardian, UK.
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