Miep Gies

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Miep Gies

Miep Gies (1987)

Born

Hermine Santruschitz
15 February 1909
Vienna, Austria-Hungary

Died

11 January 2010 (aged 100)

Hoorn, North Holland, Netherlands

Cause of

Injuries sustained from fall

death

Known for

Hiding Jews such as Anne Frankand family

from the Nazis

Religion

Roman Catholic[1][2]

Spouse(s)

Jan Gies (19051993)

(19411993; his death)

Children

Paul Gies (born 1950)

Website

http://www.miepgies.com

Hermine Santruschitz (15 February 1909 11 January 2010), better known as Miep Gies (Dutch
pronunciation: [mip xis]),[3] was one of the Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank, her family (Otto
Frank, Margot Frank, Edith Frank-Hollnder) and four other Jews (Fritz Pfeffer, Hermann van
Pels, Auguste van Pels, Peter van Pels) from the Nazis in an annex above Anne's father's business
premises during World War II. She was Austrian by birth, but in 1920, at the age of eleven, she was
taken in as a foster child by a Dutch family to whom she became very attached. Although she was
initially only to stay for six months, this stay was extended to one year because of frail health, after
which she chose to remain with them, living the rest of her life in the Netherlands. In 1933 she began
working for Otto Frank, a businessman who had moved with his family from Germany to the
Netherlands in hopes of sparing his family Nazi persecution because they were Jewish. Gies
became a close, trusted friend of the family and was a great support to them during the two years
they spent in hiding. She retrieved Anne Frank's diary after the family was arrested and kept the
papers safe until Otto Frank returned from Auschwitz in 1945, and learned of his younger daughter's
death.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Together with Alison Leslie Gold, Gies authored the book Anne Frank Remembered:
The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family, first published in 1987.
Contents
[hide]

1Early life

2Hiding the families

2.1The capture

3Honors and awards

4Death

5References

6External links

Early life[edit]
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(April 2014)

Miep Gies and Egon Krenz in 1989

Born Hermine Santruschitz in Vienna to Mathias Santruschitz and Genofeva Jakuschitz, (later
spelled as Santrouschitz in the Netherlands), Gies was transported to Leiden from Vienna in
December 1920 to escape the food shortages prevailing in Austria after World War I. The
Nieuwenburgs, a working-class family who already had six children of their own, took her as their
foster daughter, and called her by the diminutive "Miep" by which she became known. In 1922, she
moved with her foster family to Gaaspstraat 25 [11] in Amsterdam. Gies was an honour student, and
described herself as "reserved and very independent"; after graduating high school, she worked as
an accountant and then in 1933 as a secretary with the Dutch branch of the German firm Opekta.
"But the office was not the only thing in my life. My social life at this time was very lively. I loved to
dance and belonged like many young Dutch girls, to a dance club" [12] - wrote Miep.
Otto Frank had just relocated from Germany and had been appointed managing director of Opekta's
recently expanded Dutch operations. Miep became a close friend of the Frank family, as did Jan
Gies, her fianc. After refusing to join a Nazi women's association, her passport was invalidated and
she was ordered to be deported within ninety days back to Austria (by then annexed by Germany,
which classified her as a German citizen). The couple faced some difficulties, but fortunately they
were married on 16 July 1941 so that she could obtain Dutch citizenship and thus evade deportation.
"Anne was impressed with my gold ring. She looked at it dreamily. (...) Because times were hard, we
had only one ring, although the custom was for a couple to have two. Henk [In her book Miep
called Jan Gies by the name of Henk, because Anne Frank in her diary used such a pseudonym]
and I had barely scraped together enough money for one gold ring. He had insisted that I should
wear it." [13] Gies' fluency in Dutch andGerman helped the Frank family assimilate into Dutch society,
and she and her husband became regular guests at the Franks' home.

Hiding the families[edit]

With her husband Jan Gies, and the other Opekta employees, Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman,
and Bep Voskuijl, Miep Gies helped hide Otto and Edith Frank, their
daughters Margot and Anne, Hermann and his wife Auguste van Pels, their son Peter, and Fritz
Pfeffer in several upstairs rooms in the company's office building on
Amsterdam's Prinsengracht from July 6, 1942 to August 4, 1944.[14] In an interview, Gies said she
was glad to help the families hide because she was extremely concerned about them seeing what
was happening to the Jews in Amsterdam. Every day, she saw trucks loaded with Jews heading to

the railway station from where the trains left for Nazi concentration camps. She did not tell anyone,
not even her own foster parents, about the people in hiding whom she was assisting.
When purchasing food for the people in hiding, Gies avoided suspicion in many ways, for example
by visiting several different suppliers a day. She never carried more than what one shopping bag
could hold or what she could hide under her coat. She kept the workers at Opekta from being
suspicious by trying not to enter the hiding place during office hours. Her husband also helped her
by providing ration cards which he had obtained illegally. By visiting several grocery shops and
markets a day, Gies developed a good feeling for the supply situation.
At their apartment, a short bicycle ride away from the secret annex, Gies and her husband (who
belonged to the Dutch resistance), also hid an anti-Nazi university student.[15]

The capture[edit]
On the morning of 4 August 1944, sitting at her desk, Gies looked up and saw a man pointing a gun
towards herself, Voskuijl, and Kleiman and said, "Stay put! Don't move!" The families had been
betrayed and the Grne Polizei arrested the people hidden at 263 Prinsengracht, as well as Mr.
Kugler and Johannes Kleiman. The next day, Gies went to the German police office to try to find
them. She offered money to buy their freedom, but did not succeed. Gies and the other helpers
could have been executed if they had been caught hiding Jews; however, she was not arrested
because the police officer who came to interrogate her was from Vienna, her birth town.[16] Gies
remained safe with Jan in Amsterdam throughout the rest of the war.
Before the hiding place was emptied by the authorities, Gies retrieved Anne Frank's diaries and
saved them in her desk drawer. Once the war was over and it was confirmed that Anne Frank had
perished in Bergen-Belsen, Gies gave the collection of papers and notebooks to the sole survivor
from the Secret Annex, Otto Frank.[9] After transcribing sections for his family, his daughter's literary
ability became apparent and he arranged for the book's publication in 1947. Gies did not read the
diaries before turning them over to Otto, and later remarked that if she had she would have had to
destroy them because the diary contained the names of all five of the helpers as well as their black
market suppliers. She was persuaded by Otto Frank to read it in its second printing. [10] As 1947
came, she and Jan Gies moved to Jekerstraat 65, by the Merwedeplein. Otto Frank moved with
them.[11]

Honors and awards[edit]

In 1994, Gies was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany as well as
the Wallenberg Medal by the University of Michigan. The following year, Gies received the Yad
Vashem Righteous Among the Nations medal. In 1997, she was knighted in the Order of OrangeNassau by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. The minor planet 99949 Miepgies is named in her
honor.[17]
On 30 July 2009, the Austrian Ambassador to the Netherlands, Wolfgang Paul, presented Grand
Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria to Gies at her home.[18]