Despite their modest income they welcomed her into their family, sharing with her everything they had. Her Dutch foster parents already had five children. At the age of eleven, recovering from tuberculosis and suffering from poor nutrition, she was sent to live with a family in Amsterdam. Her name has become known, she said, only “because I had an Anne.” Gies assigned the title of hero to the eight souls who hid in the attic. Gies knew of many other Dutch people who sheltered or helped Jews during the war. I simply had no choice,” she told a standing-room-only audience during the fifth Wallenberg Lecture, in Rackham Auditorium, on October 11, 1994. For more than two years, she risked her own life daily to illegally protect and care for the Franks and four of their friends hiding from the Nazis in an attic. Moral courage and modesty are at the heart of Gies’ character. Were it not for Miep Gies, the world would never have met Anne Frank. The humanitarian actions of Gies more than fifty years ago in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam have had a special and enduring impact. While millions of people all over the world know about Anne Frank, far fewer are aware of Miep Gies, the woman who sustained Frank and her family in hiding during World War II.

She came to international attention after the posthumous publication of Frank’s diary.

Gies sheltered Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II.

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