Obituary Miep Gies

Gies was the last of the few non-Jews who supplied food, books and good cheer to the secret annex behind the canal warehouse where Anne, her parents, sister and four other Jews hid for 25 months during World War II.

After the apartment was raided by the German police, Gies gathered up Anne's scattered notebooks and papers and locked them in a drawer for her return after the war. The diary, which Anne Frank was given on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life in hiding from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944.

Anne Frank died of typhus at age 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, just two weeks before the camp was liberated. Gies gave the diary to Anne's father Otto, the only survivor, who published it in 1947.

After the diary was published, Gies tirelessly promoted causes of tolerance.

"The Diary of Anne Frank" was the first popular book about the Holocaust, and has been read by millions of children and adults around the world in some 65 languages.

For her courage, Gies was bestowed with the "Righteous Gentile" title by the Israeli Holocaust museum Yad Vashem. She has also been honoured by the German Government, Dutch monarchy and educational institutions.

Nevertheless, Gies resisted being made a character study of heroism for the young.

"I don't want to be considered a hero," she said in a 1997 online chat with schoolchildren.

"Imagine young people would grow up with the feeling that you have to be a hero to do your human duty. I am afraid nobody would ever help other people, because who is a hero? I was not. I was just an ordinary housewife and secretary."

Born Hermine Santrouschitz on Feb. 15, 1909 in Vienna, Gies moved to Amsterdam in 1922 to escape food shortages in Austria. She lived with a host family who gave her the nickname Miep.

In 1933, Gies took a job as an office assistant in the spice business of Otto Frank. After refusing to join a Nazi organization in 1941, she avoided deportation to Austria by marrying her Dutch boyfriend, Jan Gies.

As the Nazis ramped up their arrests and deportations of Dutch Jews, Otto Frank asked Gies in July 1942 to help hide his family in the annex above the company's canal-side warehouse on Prinsengracht 263 and to bring them food and supplies.

"I answered, 'Yes, of course.' It seemed perfectly natural to me. I could help these people. They were powerless, they didn't know where to turn," she said years later.

Jan and Miep Gies worked with four other employees in the firm to sustain the Franks and four other Jews sharing the annex. Jan secured extra food ration cards from the underground resistance. Miep cycled around the city, alternating grocers to ward off suspicions from this highly dangerous activity.

Touched by Anne's precocious intelligence and loneliness, she also brought Anne books and newspapers while remembering everybody's birthdays and special days with gifts.

"It seems as if we are never far from Miep's thoughts," Anne wrote.

In her own book, "Anne Frank Remembered," Gies recalled being in the office when the German police, acting on a tip that historians have failed to trace, raided the hide-out in August 1944.

A policeman opened the door to the main office and pointed a revolver at the three employees, telling them to sit quietly. "Bep, we've had it," Gies whispered to Bep Voskuijl.

After the arrests, she went to the police station to offer a bribe for the Franks' release, but it was too late. On Aug. 8, they were sent to Westerbork, a concentration camp in eastern Holland from where they were later packed into cattle cars and deported to Auschwitz. A few months later, Anne and her sister Margot were transported to Bergen-Belsen.

Two of the helpers, Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman, were sent to labor camps, but survived the war.

Around 140,000 Jews lived in the Netherlands before the 1940-45 Nazi occupation. Of those, 107,000 were deported to Germany and only 5,200 survived. Some 24,000 Jews went into hiding, of which 8,000 were hunted down or turned in.

After the war, Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam and lived with the Gies family until he remarried in 1952. Miep worked for him as he compiled the diary, then devoted herself to talking about the diary and answering piles of letters with questions from around the world.

After Otto Frank's death in 1980, Gies continued to campaign against Holocaust-deniers and to refute allegations that the diary was a forgery.

She suffered a stroke in 1997 which slightly affected her speech, but she remained generally in good health as she approached her 100th birthday.

Her son Paul Gies said last year she was still receiving "a sizable amount of mail" which she handled with the help of a family friend. She spent her days at the apartment where she lived since 2000 reading two daily newspapers and following television news and talk shows.

Her husband died in 1993. She is survived by her son and three grandchildren.

1. Summary
This is an obituary for Miep Gies, a woman born in 1909 in Vienna. She moved to Amsterdam in 1922 to escape from food shortages in Austria. In 1933 she took a job as an office assistant in the business of Otto Frank. In July 1942 Otto asked Miep to help his family with hiding above in a canal-side warehouse. Miep had to bring food and supplies to the family. In those days Anna wrote down everything in her diary.
On one day the German police raided the house of the family. They were sent to a terrible concentration camp, Bergen-Belsen. Miep Gies gathered up all Anna’s notebooks and papers and put them in a locker, to save for Anna’s return. But Anna never came back, she died of typhus at the age of 15. Gies gave all her saved papers to Otto, the only one of the family who survived, and he published the diary. So Miep Gies is seen as a hero, although she doesn’t think so.

2. Why did you choose this text?
Well, I’ve chosen this text because this is something I’ve never analysed before. I heard Miep Gies had died, so I wanted to know more of her life. For example why she was so special for Anne Frank, why she is seen as a hero, etc. Now I know she is a hero, because the diary of Anne Frank has been sold in so many different countries and languages. This because Miep Gies was the one who saved all the papers and notebooks of Anne Frank. I think she can be seen a hero too

3. Typical examples of Vocabulary and Style
An obituary says for example, date of birth (Miep Gies: 15 February 1909), what that particular person has done in his/her life (Miep Gies: worked as an office assistant in Amsterdam, she had one son and three grandchildren, etc.), why that person is so special (Miep Gies: is seen as a hero, because she saved all the notebooks and papers from Anne Frank). This obituary includes phrases Gies had once said, for example: "I don't want to be considered a hero," she said in a 1997 online chat with schoolchildren. This is probably her reaction about everyone seeing her as a hero.

4. Type of text
This is an obituary. An obituary is a published notice of someone who has recently died, which includes a biography. This an obituary of Miep Gies, she died on the eleventh of January this year. This is Professional Communication.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/6970925/Obituary- Miep-Gies.html