Excellent book from the viewpoint of author Miep Gies.

I loved this book so much! I enjoyed the audio version and listening to the familiar Dutch accent of my ancestors. This book parallels so well with the original diary. I actually enjoyed it more as it lets you into what was happening to common people during this time. The decisions they made, the suffering, the risks they took to help make a bad time in history more bearable for the unjustly persecuted. I am not sure if I enjoyed it so much because my parents and grandparents lived through this time in Holland and it helped me understand where they were coming from better, or if it was because I had just visited the Anne Frank museum and house for the second time in my life, but it was fantastic. Miep was a likeable practical Dutch woman. I couldn’t stop listening. If you are familiar with the original story of Anne Frank I highly recommend.

A minha opinião em vídeo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99vPl...

This is a book I discovered as a teenager and which soon became one of my all time favourites. Enthralled like so many others by Anne Frank’s diary, I was even more fascinated by Miep Gies’s account. So when the French television aired a new film version of the Diary a few weeks ago I hurriedly ordered a copy of Anne Frank Remembered on Amazon and dug into it as soon as it arrived.

Unfortunately I was at first disappointed as I found it difficult to get into. Having just finished The Kite Runner, a highly compelling read with which it is difficult to compete, was certainly partly to blame. But mostly I was surprised by the style of Miep’s account which I hadn’t remembered well. Having written it (shadow written with Alison Leslie Gold actually) as an old woman, she obviously didn’t remember everything. But she did have many very detailed memories of incidents and episodes. As a result, some parts of her book are more like a collection of memories than a continuous account. A paragraph might get into a very detailed description of an apparently insignificant incident and the next jump to another subject, leaving the reader to wonder were she is going.

At first therefore I struggled to remember what had kept me so enthralled as a young girl. But then, as the book progressed and I got more and more absorbed into it, I found that all these recollections connected to paint a most vivid and sharp image of those times: the fear, tragedies and losses; the small miracles; the every day acts of bravery of those who fought against the Nazis with their meagre mean; the short moments of joyous reprieve when a cup of real coffee, or a whole tray of strawberries, was found; the moments of despair and those of hope… Mostly, it shows the absurdity of those times when “thieves were safe but Jews were not” : how far the hatred went, how much the people changed, how deep everyone fell… and how despite all this life went on, those who had a job continued to go to work everyday and the Frank business ran all through the war.

In her diary Anne paints a unique picture of what it was like to grow up as a hidden Jewish young girl. Miep shows the rest. Once a refugee in the Netherlands, where she was sent by her Austrian family after WW1 (to be fed and safe), she witnessed how her adoptive country first became a safe haven for German Jews when Hitler came to power, before falling as well into his hands. And she tells us of the Frank’s journey from their arrival in Amsterdam in 1933 to Otto’s life after the war.

All in all, I find it to be an amazing read and a great companion to Anne’s diary and would highly recommend it!

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Anne Frank Remembered

• by Miep Gies (1909 to 2010)
with Alison Leslie Gold (first published 1987)

The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family

•

This is the autobiography of Hermine "Miep" Gies, the woman who helped to hide and provide for Anne Frank and her family from 1942 to 1944 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands during World War II.

"I am not a hero. I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did or more...during those dark and terrible times years ago...
More than twenty thousand Dutch people helped to hide Jews and others in need of hiding during those years. I willingly did what I could to help. My husband did as well. It was not enough."



The prologue begins with co-author Alison Gold's details of the Frank family's hiding place, their arrest, Miep's encounter with the Gestapo, saving the diary and later Mr Frank's publication of Anne's diary post-war. Since Miep wasn't arrested she kept Frank's business operating during this time. Author Alison Gold convinced Mr and Mrs Gies to tell their part in this important story.

An additional prologue by Miep Gies explains how she was not a hero and that her story is just the story of ordinary people involved in extraordinarily terrible times. As in Anne's diary the names of some have been changed.

Chapter 1 begins in 1933 with Miep living with her adopted parents in Amsterdam, describing the details of that town and her happy life there among the Dutch people. She was born in Vienna, Austria (1909) and at age 5 World War I began. She grew up sickly and critically malnourished from the war shortages and her parents property. In 1920 at age 11 Miep and many other impoverished kids were sent to recuperate in the better environment of the Netherlands. The three-month program of a healthy diet and nutrition was extended for Miep since she was slow in recovering. Eventually her stay became permanent. At age 16 her mom agreed Miep was far better off with the adopted Dutch family--she did visit her parents and sister in Vienna.

She finished school, went to work and eventually was hired by Otto Frank at his pectin and spice company which provided ingredients for making Jams, sausage, etc. The company was successful, prospered and expanded. Things became more difficult with Adolf tramping about Europe and making war on the Jews. The Franks had left Germany because of the Nazis. Now in the Netherlands an Aryan movement began with the formation of Nazi-like clubs. Refugees, many affluent Jews, arrived in the Netherlands, but when immigration laws changed they had no place to go.

Holland has a long eastern border with Germany and despite being officially neutral in World War II the Germans invaded the Netherlands (May 10th 1940). The Queen and government fled to England along with the country's gold treasury--the Dutch forces surrendered. With Hitler controlling most of Europe the Dutch people pin their hopes on England. Soon the Nazis impose ever-increasing restrictions and atrocities beginning with: all Jews required to register; listening to the BBC is outlawed; Jewish professionals lose their jobs; the Germans begin confiscating the food supply and other goods, sending them across the border to Germany and the roundups begin--slave labor to work in the German factories. It's just the beginning.

Miep is officially an Austrian citizen and since you refused to join the Nazi party is ordered out of Holland--back to Vienna. She's able to marry her Dutch fiance Henk (aka Jan Gies) and so becomes a Dutch citizen. Mr Frank "officially" turns his business over to Henk and others so it appears as a respectable Aryan company--no Jews, but secretly he remains the boss. Miep and company are heartened by good news: 1941, the Americans are in the war; the Russian winter is killing Germans; the words of Churchill, secretly heard over the BBC, encourages them to endure...

In July 1942 Margot Frank (age 16) receives a notice to report for forced-labor deportation to Germany. The Frank family of four (& a few others) enter the hiding place (small upstairs rooms in the back of Mr Frank's business--the door hidden by a bookcase). Anne is thirteen. Miep vows to keep them safe and provide food and necessities. Henk and other confidants help as well--knowing they could face prison and worse.

It gets harder to find enough food for everyone, sometimes an all-day task for Miep. Anne, overtly inquisitive, plys Miep with questions. Those in the hiding place all want the latest news and to vent their frustration of living for months in cramped quarters. Everyone is wondering when will the Allies invade, when will the Nazis be vanquished. Amsterdam is now a city of women, children and the elderly. The Jews and many of the Dutch have all been carted off to Germany or who knows where. Henk sneaks about as part of the Resistance fighters and the Underground: civil servants giving aid to those in need. Hidden Jews are being found or betrayed with dire consequences for them and the Dutch who hid them--reward for the betrayer.

August 4th 1944 after hiding for a bit over 2 years someone saw something or talked or betrayed them. Acting on a tip, SS officer Karl Silberbauer from Gestapo HQ in Amsterdam led a raid on the hiding place, arresting the eight Jews and two of their Dutch protectors. Silberbauer knew Miep was involved, but being a fellow countrymen from Vienna and "such a nice girl", he chose not to arrest her--leaving her to run the company. When the police & SS leave, Miep finds Anne's diary and numerous additional pages left behind, scattered on the floor of the hiding place. She gathered it all up and stowed it in her office desk drawer, never reading it because it was Anne's personal thoughts and property.

Finding enough to eat or scraps of wood to make a fire for cooking is increasingly difficult--the Dutch people are desperate and starving. Here Miep details this even harsher time as they hope for rescue by the Allies. Finally May 4th 1945 they hear the news, Hitler is dead, the Germans defeated, the war over. But the impoverished state of the Dutch people continues 'till Allied aid reaches them. Soon the horrors of the Holocaust are revealed--such atrocities unimaginable to Miep and the others. Then the waiting; who will come home?

In June Mr Frank makes it home from Auschwitz; his wife dead, the whereabouts of his two daughters unknown (eventually they learn Anne and her sister died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp). The story now details those who made it back and those who didn't and tells of the slow recovery of the country. Electricity, the lights finally come back on. Mr Frank moves in with Miep and Henk. A historian persuades Mr Frank to publish Anne's diary--an important war document. In the years ahead Miep and later Mr Frank leave the pectin and spice company.

After much persuasion Miep agrees to read Anne Frank's published diary (previously, just the thought of reading it was too traumatizing--having lived it). She admits it's a good thing she didn't read it during those nine months after the arrest and before the war's end, otherwise she would have burned it to protect the accomplices, even though many of the names were disguised with a pseudonym. She says of Anne, "My young friend had left a remarkable legacy to the world".

In the Epilogue & Afterward Miep explains how Mr Frank lived with them for 7 years, married a fellow Auschwitz survivor and emigrated to Switzerland--living happily ever after. Miep & Henk (Jan) have a son, Paul born in 1950. She covers the growing interest in Anne's story and the various versions of the diary (Anne had revised her original diary). The identity of the betrayer is discussed. Frank admitting he didn't want to know who it was and their identity seems to remain a mystery. (Silberbauer is ultimately exonerated for his role). A list is given of the real names of people and companies mentioned in Anne's diary. Miep explains her involvement in educating a whole new generation who don't know of the Holocaust and explains her life as she approaches her 100th birthday.

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Well done.
A great look at the story from the viewpoint of Anne's adult friend and confidant.

Some of the versions of the diary include:
abridged or edited stories suitable for young readers, etc.
The Diary of a Young Girl, Mr Frank's original version that left out some sensitive topics.
The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition, all the details and family history.
The Definitive Edition, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, is expanded using Anne's previously censored words and includes the real names of people and places.

NTS - notes to self
Some Interesting Details:

Once the diary was published & exclaimed over, people wanted to know who betrayed the Frank family and in the subsequent investigation Miep herself is suspected. Mr Frank makes a point of just how ludicrous that notion is.

Two pen pal letters exist, written by Anne and her sister Margot to two school girls in Danville, Iowa dated 29, April 1940. With the letter to her new American pen pal, Anne enclosed a postcard of Amsterdam and a small picture of herself.

Margot too kept a diary, but it was never found.

Henk was always a non-believer. As for Miep; "...by the time the war was finished my sense of God had been poisoned and only an empty hole was left."

To correct inaccuracies Miep mentioned films that portrayed inaccurate details. Some of these included:
SS Silberbauer arrived on a bicycle, NOT in a Mercedes festooned with the swastika flag.
Anne did NOT scream during the arrest.
There was no shotgun interrogation and no gun pointed at Miep's head.
After the war Mr Frank arrived home on foot.

The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank is a TV movie made in 1988 and is based on Miep's book Anne Frank Remembered.




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..

Ever since I was a little girl, I've had a fascination with European history. In particular, the first and second world wars interested me to no end. When I was nine years old, I was first introduced to the Holocaust in my fourth grade class. Every week, we were required to read a story out of an anthology and would study that story. These were sometimes short stories, sometimes excerpts from novels, and sometimes a retelling of historical events (I could recall that earlier that year we read about the first successful open heart surgery in the same anthology). It was through this collection of stories that I first read about Anne Frank, taken from the last diary entries she wrote before going into hiding and the first she wrote while there. The story didn't stick with me much until the following year, when I spotted The Diary of a Young Girl in our monthly book orders. I requested a copy from my mother and devoured it upon its arrival.

At the age of ten, I was obsessed with Anne Frank and her story. I spent countless hours researching the Holocaust and what happened to Anne and her family. I slowed down our family computer by downloading every picture of Anne I could find online and bookmarking any website that had new information about my new favorite person. It was because of Anne and her diary that I found my own love of writing, and decided shortly after I started reading the diary that I wanted to be a novelist (which remains to this day my biggest life goal and dream). From the ages of ten to fourteen, Anne Frank ruled my life.

It must have been around this time that I received a copy of Miep Gies' story. I never read it until this year, when somehow, the story of Anne Frank and the Holocaust popped back into my head. I found this book setting dejectedly on my bookshelf.

For anyone thinking about reading this book, be forewarned: it touches upon a lot of what Anne already covered in her diary. I feel odd putting historical events in spoiler warning tags, but just in case, there are passages about Margot's call up notice, the burglaries in the building, and Anne and Peter's budding relationship. The only difference is that they are written about from Miep's perspective. But there are parts detailing Miep's own story, about how she came to the Netherlands due to food shortages, just how she came to work for Otto Frank and how the hiding plan was introduced to her; how she met her husband, a story of her hiding people in her own home besides the eight in the famous Secret Annex, and yes, details of the inevitable arrest and following events.

We don't gain a lot of Anne's story in this, so the title was a bit misleading. However, Miep does tell a story that, to people interested in the history, is endlessly fascinating to read about. The story is of course sad, and it did bring tears to my eyes a couple times. Miep had fears that even Anne didn't dare mention in her diary. It was haunting to read about the night that Miep spent in the hiding place with the Franks, as well as when she wrote about people in other hiding places who died before they could be freed.

Miep's story is a haunting tribute to one of the most atrocious historical events that has ever occurred. If you are at all interested in history or in the story of Anne Frank, it is a must read. There's not a lot to be gained about Anne, but it is worth a read. It offers a unique perspective of what happened on the Prinsengracht canal and elsewhere.

One last note, in response to other reviews that I have read of Miep's story:

Someone said that all Miep was concerned about during the early days of the war was getting married. I don't think that this is actually a fair assessment of Miep's desire to get married to her husband. In fact, I'd venture to say that this person actually didn't read the story at all. This was the early days of the war, when people just didn't know what was going to happen to them. They had no idea what was going to transpire in just a few short years. Of course people thought about themselves. Also, if Miep and Jan (referred to as Henk in Anne's diary and Miep's story) didn't get married, she would have been forced to leave the Netherlands and return to Austria, which she had already said didn't feel like home to her anymore. Tell me how much you'd like it if you were being forcibly removed from your home country and shipped somewhere else, and you could stop it, but the way to stop it was immensely difficult? I'd wager that you probably wouldn't be able think of much else for a while.

Another issue that I've seen people take with Miep's story is that she focuses solely on the persecution of the Jews during the war, and not the other groups targeted by Hitler. Now, I know that there were others who were persecuted during the war and that the Jews were not the only targets of the Nazis. However, Anne Frank's diary only focuses on the Jewish persecution as well, which makes me wonder if the other groups that were targeted were targeted on such a broad scale or as publicly. I don't know if there were laws against the other groups. I don't know if there was public opposition to them the way that there was to the Jews. I really don't know if Miep was ever aware until after the war that Hitler wasn't just focused on Jews. Let's also make another thing clear: I've read other personal accounts of the Holocaust, and the person who wrote said account typically only focuses on whatever group they are attached to. Night is the first example coming to mind, and though my memories of Elie Wiesel's book aren't exceptionally clear, I do know that Wiesel was imprisoned in the concentration camps because he was Jewish. I am nearly positive that most of the things he wrote about focused on the persecution of other Jews.

Miep is famous because she helped hide nine people throughout the war, and she very famously helped one person in particular: Anne Frank. All nine of the people that she helped happened to be Jewish. Her boss was Jewish. The woman she rented her apartment from was Jewish. Her dentist was Jewish. To me, it only makes sense that she writes about the Jewish suffering, because that was what she witnessed the most.

All in all, a remarkable account of a horrible event.

Um livro fabuloso que nos mostra as vivéncias e o dia-a-dia de um cidadão comum na Holanda ocupada, durante a 2a Guerra Mundial.
A vida de Miep Gies, uma das amigas mais próximas dos Frank, que os ajudou durante os 25 meses de clandestinidade no Anexo, e que enfrentou inúmeras dificuldades ao longo de 5 anos de ocupação. Desde a infância pobre em Viena, a ida para a Holanda, até ao fim da guerra, ficamos a conhecer melhor uma mulher corajosa e determinada, que ajudou dezenas de pessoas, e lutou contra a injustiça e a presença opressora do inimigo.
Um livro imperdível!

“I am not a hero. I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did or more—much more—during those dark and terrible times years ago, but always like yesterday in the hearts of those of us who bear witness. Never a day goes by that I do not think of what happened then.

More than twenty thousand Dutch people helped to hide Jews and others in need of hiding during those years. I willingly did what I could to help. My husband did as well. It was not enough.” (from the prologue.)

This is not a new book, but one of those to which I return. I even like holding it in my hands and just looking at the name of the woman whose journey it reveals: Miep Gies.

Miep is the woman who, with her husband Jan Gies, helped hide Anne Frank from the Nazis. Like so many young Jewish girls growing up I was more than a little obsessed with stories from the Holocaust; especially The Diary of Anne Frank. At the time she wrote in her diary, she was probably only a bit older than I was at the time I read the book, so, of course, I walked in her shoes. It certainly didn’t seem long enough ago to not think about her as me, and me as her.

Was there a Jewish child growing up anywhere in the world who didn’t think what if? Some, I imagine, averted their thoughts from the events of WWII and pretended it was all as far away as the Roman Empire. Others, went through life compulsively reading about it, breathing the lives of those who’d lived through it and those who had lost their lives.

On top of the obvious victims, were the other victims—those who were forced to witness the atrocity, those who participated. After visiting the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, and I paraphrase here, what my husband and I remembered most deeply, were the audio-taped words of a survivor. In speaking about his experience in a concentration camp, he related a story of being berated by a fellow internee for praying.

“Why are you thanking God?” he was asked.

“I am thanking him for not making me him,” the man said, pointing to a guard.

It is horror without relief to have been a slave, a concentration camp internee, and a victim in Darfur. It is another horror, to have been the victimizer.

Books like this, they always make me wonder, given the circumstances, on which side would I end up? We read the books, we watch the movies, and we assume we’d have the courage of the righteous, but I believe it bears remembering how brave people like Miep Gies had to be, and to remember all the Miep and Jams out there today. I pray that given the circumstances, we’d follow their path.

I am not a hero. I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did or more—much more—during those dark and terrible times years ago, but always like yesterday in the hearts of those of us who bear witness. Never a day goes by that I do not think of what happened then. . . . I willingly did what I could to help. My husband did as well. It was not enough.There is nothing special about me. . . . I was only willing to do what was asked of me and what seemed necessary at the time. . . . My story is a story of very ordinary people during extraordinarily terrible times. Times the like of which I hope with all my heart will never, never come again. It is for all of us ordinary people all over the world to see to it that they do not. (11-12)

This autobiography by Miep Gies is quietly amazing. It is an excellent companion to Anne Frank's diary. The narrative in Gies's memoir is not directly linked to particular days Anne wrote about, but readers familiar with the diary will see some clear connections.

One of the things that's special about Gies's book is how it fills out the picture of what was happening when the Franks and others were in hiding. Reading only Anne's diary, one can get the feeling that life outside of the Annex was going on as normal. But Gies shows the increasing pressure that everyone in Amsterdam was under in those years. The details from Gies's story are overwhelming, and the last 50 pages of her book are hard to put down.

Of course, the biggest gap that Gies fills is the one that Anne's diary couldn't: What happened on that day? It's gripping, terrifying, and heartbreaking.

For me, the most impressive aspect of this story is what Gies summarizes in the quote above, from the preface to the book: that she was an ordinary person making the best choices she could in dark times. I love seeing Gies's character as she steadily pushes forward, speaking and taking action based on compassion. The same is true of her husband, Henk, who must also have been an incredible person. I was grateful for this reminder, through Miep's story, that who we become is based on those little choices we make every day. May I become a compassionate, wise person through my daily choices.

Fascinating story about an incredible woman faced with many hard choices. Very inspiring.

Miep foi uma das pessoas que mais ajudou os moradores do anexo secreto onde Anne Frank ficou escondida. Ela além de trabalhar normalmente no escritório onde ficava o esconderijo, fazia o impossível para conseguir comida e tudo que os moradores escondidos precisavam. Seu esposo também através de um grupo secreto ajudava com cupons de racionamento que eram obtidos no mercado negro e eram trocados por alimentos. Neste livro Miep Gies conta sua história, tudo o que viveu naquela época sombria de guerra. Ela participou de todos os eventos e fatos importantes relacionados à Anne Frank; Esteve quando a família Frank foi para o esconderijo, foi ela que foi rendida no dia que a família frank foi presa, Foi Miep que recolheu e guardou o Diário de Anne Frank .
Um livro magistral dessa heroína que morreu recentemente com mais de 100 anos !!!

A recent viewing of A Small Light led me to revisit the Anne Frank story via the reminiscences of Miep Geis, the young woman who, with her husband, helped the Frank family during their years in hiding led me to this superb audiobook.

A really fascinating book providing new insights, both about the Frank family and life in Holland during the occupation. Holland was one of the last countries freed (May 1945) and many of the Dutch starved to death during “the hunger winter.”