ANNE FRANK REMEMBERED: The Story of Miep Gies, Who Helped to Hide the Frank Family

by Miep with Alison Leslie Gold Gies ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 4, 1987

As-told-to memoir by an old Dutch woman, nearing 80, who, with her husband, helped to shield the family of Anne Frank. Although Gies' story is weakened in the ghost-written format, it still remains well worth telling. Gies' recollections of the Frank family are sprightly, right from her being hired as kitchen help by the often tyrannical Mr. Frank, who promptly ordered her to ""make jam!"" Anne was four when Miep first met her, and the older woman watched her grow with sympathy. Her great service was, of course, locking up the girl's diary once the Nazis had captured the family. Stubbornly refusing to read the girl's record, for fear of invading her privacy, she kept the diary safe through the war years. She now says that had she read the diaries, she would have had to destroy them, so dangerous were they in the information they revealed about Miep's family and other sympathetic Dutch survivors. As a final historic irony, Miep and her husband came under suspicion, some 20 years later, of having turned in the Frank family to the Germans. They endured interviews with suspicious police, who were finally convinced of their innocence.The veracity of the smallest details in Gies' account may well never be proven, as she and her husband are the very last of the survivors of the Frank story. Nevertheless, the book stands as a testament to the few Dutch people who opposed the Nazis.

Pub Date: May 4, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1987

Categories: NONFICTION