The Historical Deed of Miep Gies - Essay Example

Miep Gies was born in Vienna, and her initial name was Hermine Santroushits. Among other Austrian children suffering from malnutrition in the difficult years after World War I, she was sent to the Netherlands, where her foster-parents gave her a new name Miep. In 1933, a woman came to work for a company of Otto Frank, who fled to the Netherlands from Germany. It was the hard times. Ruud van der Rol wrote in his book: “By the year Anny Frank was born, life in Germany had become very hard. Poverty and unemployment were at an all-time high and most Germans were very dissatisfied with their government” (1995, 16). In May 1940, the Nazis occupied the Netherlands and began the oppression of the Jews. Frank knew that in the future, the situation would only get worse. Miep helped the Franks family and several other Dutch with her husband Ian, despite the serious risk, from 6 July 1942 until August 4, 1944, when the Gestapo found the shelter. They grabbed the Franks - parents and their two daughters together with four other hiding Jews and sent them to the extermination camps for hard-working. After that, Miep Gies found the shelter of Anne Frank's diary, who was 15 years old at the time of the arrest and who later died of typhus in the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. It is believed that the Franks were the victims of a scammer. After the war, even a special investigation was carried out, which resulted in a finding of several suspects, but it was impossible to identify the traitor. Miep Gies kept the manuscript and did not even read it until the time when Anne's father returned. Otto Frank – was the only survivor of the family. He published the diary in 1947, and it became one of the most famous and impressive documents about the atrocities of fascism. The story of Anna Frank provides a demonstration of the absence of the preset called human nature and enables people to see the face of fascism through her diaries as well as to help them to understand the cruelty and terror of that time. Miep Gies became the example of brevity and nobility for millions of people.

In conclusion, it is important to state the fact, that Miep Gies did not refuse or change her position for the rest of her life. She was one of the initiators of the museum of Anne Frank in Amsterdam and remained its active member during her whole life. Until her 90th birthday, she traveled around the world and told the story of Anne Frank to the children. The name of Miep Gies became a symbol of resistance and unreadable strength of mind and character.