Wonderful Women Wednesdays: Miep Gies

You may have missed it, what with the important and tragic breaking news of the day that Simon Cowell will not be returning to American Idol next season ( / sarcasm), but a truly remarkable human being passed away on Monday.

Miep Gies did not like the label “hero”. Isn’t that always the case? Those that define the word never feel as if they live up to it. In honour of her memory, I will not call her one, but I will say that she was an extraordinary woman in extraordinary times.

Few of us can imagine the power and utter ruthlessness that the Nazi party cultivated during its relatively short tenure. The Nazi Army marched into countries and within weeks or even days, the country was easily theirs for the taking. Ethnic groups were sent to work camps, dissenters, too. All across Europe the message was clear: join us and live comfortably, even happily, but rally against us and we will make an example out of you.

No single group experienced the torture of the Nazi party worse than anyone of the Jewish faith. Six million people disappeared during its reign of terror. Six million people is hard to fathom, but over the course of ten years, if you can imagine the population of a big city like New York or Chicago just vanishing, perhaps the scale of the atrocity can be a bit more realized.

It was easy, even advisable, to keep your head down, go with the flow. Why risk your own life, especially for almost certain death, just to help another? What about a married couple? Their two daughters? Add in another family of three and a single man. What would you do to save them? Anything? I can say without fear of being cynical that very few would, because very few people did.

Miep Gies did.

Though Miep was not the only one in the office assisting the Frank’s and the others living in the confined quarters, she was the one who took on much of the burden and risks. For two years, Miep helped Anne Frank’s family survive, at great risk to herself. This was a time when you couldn’t walk into a grocery store and buy just anything. Due to the war, foods were rationed, and yet, Miep, along with her husband, worked with local grocers, black marketers, and farmers to get enough food to keep eight people from starving. She smuggled these foods into the secret annex, located at Otto Frank’s office during working hours, underneath her coat. This was not easy.

What I find remarkable about her choice is that this was a young woman, in her early thirties. She had just married, did not yet have a child. She had not lived her own life and yet, she was willing to do that which many of us cannot even conceive of and that was, to make a conscious decision, each day, to help a group of individuals to survive.

Even more remarkable? After the inhabitants of the secret annex were discovered on August 4th, 1944, Miep rode her bicycle to Gestapo headquarters and begged for the release of her friends. Few of us know what we are made of, because we are never tested to that degree, but even fewer of us would ever look into the face of death. She had to have known she was risking her own life. She would have been a fool not to know.

It was Miep who found the diary. Anne’s diary. The voice of the young Jewish girl in hiding – the voice and innocent voice that has continued to be heard and seen by millions, maybe even billions, of people across the globe. The voice and face that serve as a reminder of what we can lose when we don’t pay attention to the atrocities committed by evil dictators. (We are still learning those lessons, unfortunately.)

Without Miep, we wouldn’t have had Anne’s words, not just because she found Anne’s diary, but because she enabled it’s conception – fed the author and by feeding the author, fed the words. She would go on to give the diary to Anne’s father, Otto, the sole survivor of the group. Otto Frank would go on to publish the work, establishing a legacy beyond their dreams.

Miep Gies is a truly remarkable woman, whose passing went nearly unnoticed by the mainstream media in this country. That’s a tragedy. Too often, we honour the wrong things in this country: wealth and power. This is a woman that stood up at a time when others sat down and kept their eyes closed. Her name trended on Twitter, and yet, still, the mainstream media virtually ignored her passing.

But, within the group of people who know, who remember, we mourn the loss of a truly great person – a woman who deserves to be remembered, a truly remarkable human being.