Miep was born on February 15, 1909, in Vienna. She married a dutch man and worked for Otto Frank and became close to his family. She hid the Franks in secret annex for more than two years after they were discovered by the Gestapo. She found Anne Frank’s diaries and returned them to Otto Frank, who later published them. Miep recorded her own memoir of the time in 1987 and died on january 11, 2010, at age 100.
Early life
Miep Gies was born Hermine Santrouschitz (Santrouschitz in Dutch) on February 15, 1909, in Vienna, Austria, the second daughter of working-class Austrian parents. Because there was little work and food shortages were frequent in the wake of World War I, Hermine was accepted into a Dutch program for malnourished children.
In December 1920, she was placed with the Nieuwenburg family in Leiden to help regain her strength and health. The family nicknamed her Miep, and not just the name stuck—Miep stayed with her foster family long past the initial three months, moving with them to Amsterdam. She did go back to see her family in Vienna when she was 16, but trepidation about having to stay
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She published a memoir, Anne Frank Remembered, in 1987, which provides an illuminating bridge to the Secret Annex. As a woman of courage and conviction, she toured and lectured on the lessons of the Holocaust and Anne Frank 's legacy, but Miep always insisted she was not a hero; she simply did what many other "good Dutch people" did. Anne Frank said of her, "We are never far from Miep 's thoughts." And indeed, Miep and her husband reserved August 4 as a special day of memory. Miep received many awards late in life, including the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Yad Vashem Medal and the Wallenberg Medal. In accepting the latter honor, she said, "I feel strongly that we should not wait for our political leaders to make this world a