A few weeks ago, I wrote about one of my favorite heroes, Traute Lafrenz, a woman who is the last surviving member of the Nazi resistance group, the White Rose. I didn’t think of her to start with tonight. I began instead with thoughts of Anne Frank, because yesterday was the anniversary of her birthday.
And a little bit of reading about Anne Frank led me very quickly to another very special woman. This woman was one of the people who hid Anne Frank and her family in the Secret Annex in Amsterdam. Her name was Miep Gies.
More below.
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Born in Vienna in 1909, Miep Gies died in the Netherlands in 2010, at age 100, same age as Traute Lafrenz now (though she is still alive). Like Traute Lafrenz, she demurred when people referred to her as a hero.
I am not a hero. I am not a special person. I don't want attention. I did what any decent person would have done.
(Quote may be found in a large number of places, I got it most directly from the wikipedia article on her.)
I do not agree with either Lafrenz or Gies in their denials of hero-hood. Perhaps there were others who ‘would have done’ what they did, certainly there were others who DID do what they did. But for me there is no question that making a stand in times when one’s life is unquestionably on the line that is heroic and noble.
Both Gies and Lafrenz could have been executed for their actions of defiance and humanity. It’s a miracle that neither was. Gies apparently survived only because the SS officer who came to the Secret Annex after the Franks were betrayed was from the same home town, Vienna, as Gies. (She recognized that from his accent.) He couldn’t bring himself to arrest her after that.
Gies is also SOLELY responsible for seeing to it that Anne Frank’s writings survived the war. She found them in the Secret Annex and hid them away, giving them to Anne Frank’s father after the war. (He was the only one of the Frank family to survive.) She told Otto Frank that she never read the diary. She said if she had, she would have had to destroy it, because it irrevocably identified all of those who conspired to hide the Franks and the other refugees in the Secret Annex. Had the diary fallen into Nazi hands, she wouldn’t have survived that.
Anyway, tonight I offer up a little prayer for Miep Gies, and for the kind of courage she demonstrated throughout her life. It gives me hope for our species, and pride that such ones as her and Traute Lafrenz stood up when it mattered, even if Anne Frank and the Scholl siblings (and so many others!) did not survive. In ways, they DO live, because of these heroes. We wouldn’t even know Anne Frank’s story without her.
Thanks for reading. On to tonight’s comments! Formatted by one of my real-life friend/heroes, brillig!
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