Holocaust Rescuers - Miep Gies

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Everyone who has heard of the Holocaust most likely knows of the famous Anne Frank. Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl who managed to go into hiding from the Nazis in the 1940s. She wrote down her experiences in a journal until she was found, and is generally the best-remembered of the Holocaust victims, but how did she survive? Who helped the Frank family hide, and kept them alive when they were in hiding? The Jews who were sent to concentration camps were not the only brave and suffering people. There were the rescuers, and the defenders of these persecuted people. One such person was Miep Gies.
Miep Gies was born on February 15, 1909 in Vienna, Austria as Hermine Santruschitz. She was a weak child, and with food shortages and a growing family, she became malnourished and unhealthy. Luckily, in the 1920s, a program was set up to give Austrian children foster homes in the Netherlands while their home country tried to get back on its feet. Miep was chosen to be given a foster home with Laurens Nieuwenburg and his family. She was originally only supposed to stay with that family for three months, but because of her faltering health and her growing attachment to the foster family, she remained for over five years. After she graduated from high school, she became an office assistant at a textile company for a little over six years. Then she found employment at a jam company, which was run by Mr. Otto Frank. Not only was Mr. Frank an excellent director, but he was also said to be the friend of everyone in his office.
On July 16, 1941, Miep married Jan Gies, and she officially became a Dutch citizen the same day. The following year in June, Mr. Frank and his family, along with a small family called the van Pels, went into hiding. ...

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...as also knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 1997. Miep Gies died at the age of one hundred on January 11, 2010.

Works Cited

Gies, Miep, and Alison L. Gold. Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
Gies, Paul, and Cindy Rodermond. "Interview with Miep Gies." Children's Books for Kids of All Ages and Literacy Levels | Scholastic. N.p., 1998. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
Gies, Paul, Elisa Mutsaers, Rene Mendel, and Beter Engels Vertaalbureau. "Miep Gies :: en." Miep Gies :: Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
"Miep Gies :: The arrest." Miep Gies :: Home. N.p., 1998. Web. 11 Dec. 2013. .
"The Story of Miep Gies." Children's Books for Kids of All Ages and Literacy Levels | Scholastic. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.

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