January 11, 2010

Miep Gies, the last surviving member of the group who hid Anne Frank and her family during World War II, passed away at age 100 in the Netherlands. The BBC reports she suffered a fall last month, and died on January 11th in a nursing home.

Gies and several other employees of Anne Frank's father kept them safe in an annex and brought them food and supplies for 25 months during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. After the family was captured, Gies collected Anne Frank's papers for safekeeping, and eventually returned them to her father, the family's sole survivor of the Holocaust. The papers were compiled and published in 1947 as Anne Frank:The Diary of a Young Girl.

Her efforts did not stop there. Well into her 80s she went on to travel and speak about her experiences, as well as speak out against intolerance and Holocaust denial. In 1989 the West German government awarded Gies the highest civilian medal, and in 1996 Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands knighted her. In private, Gies and her husband Jan would stay home to reflect on their lost loved ones every August 4th, the anniversary of the raid.

Besides risking her life to protect those in need, Miep Gies enabled the publication of the most famous document of the Holocaust and perhaps the most famous document about human rights abuse. Published in 68 languages and read in classrooms worldwide, this book has allowed generations of people to learn about an extraordinarily dark period of human history and why it must never be forgotten. Miep Gies demonstrates that even in the most dismal of times, the goodness of humanity can still prevail.

About 10 years ago (I'm not exactly sure) a story came out about the diary. It was proven that a large portion of it, I believe the later half, was not really writen by Anne. It may have been her father or someone else later on who embelished it. This story was QUICKLY hushed up and seems to have completely disappeard. I am positive that I read about it. This is my own opinion, but I feel Israel or powerful Jewish organizations hushed this up very quickly. Millions of people have read the 'diary' in book form and belived every word was true. Imagine the embarrassment if the world knew that some of it was fabrication.

the book was called the biography of Anne Frank..
There was a real Anne Frank. Her family hid in that attic. The whole family except the father were murdered. Was is not true?. That she shared a kiss with a boy?, they she wanted to rewrite her diary? That there was no window they looked out of?That they were hungry and cold?
The father took the diary and other papers the family had and along with this woman Gies, [who did help], and wrote the book.. It is what it is, a good story about a poor girl that just wanted to become a woman that had her life cut short.

Well said, G....

Thanks to Denny for posting the article and to Gaspare for the words of common sense.

didnt anne frank and her mother die of typhus in the camp hospital? .i always found it strange that there were hospitals in extermination camps if you planned to gas prisoners why try and make them better first?

The camp hospital was for the German guards except for those periods when the camp doctors examined the prisoners to determine who should go to the gas chambers and who could be further exploited through labor.

The camps were well organized to do their job.

Jim

Nit picking maybe but Belsen didn,t have gas chambers (as far as I recall) as it wasn,t an extermination camp.It was a dreadful place and thousands perished but it wasn,t set up as a killing factory.
As an aside I was stationed at Bergen in the seventies and the elderly locals had collective amnesia.
SMIFFY