We left Miep right after she decided, with zero hesitation, that she would do whatever was necessary to keep the people in the attic safe as they hid from the Nazi persecution of the Jewish population.
For the next several years Miep would risk her life daily to fulfill that promise, and her Miep’s story is quite documented. One of the most important things she did was to collect from the annex and keep safe the writing collection of a 15-year-old Anne Frank until after the war. We know how she, Jan, and the other four helpers–Bep Voskuijl, Victor Kugler, Johan Klieman, and Johan Voskuijl– kept the Frank and Van Pel’s families, and Fritz Pfeffer safe for two years in the attic. In the slightly wider world, we know how the Nazi government captured, transported to concentration camps in other countries, tortured, and slaughtered millions of mostly Jewish people but also resisters, Black, Roma, and gay people… including all the former inhabitants of the secret annex with the lone exception of Otto Frank.
The time that Miep spent caring for those in hiding was not pleasant in Amsterdam, there was severe food shortages and more and more control by the Nazi military until, in 1945, the war ended and the rebuilding began. Otto Frank returned to Amsterda and moved in with Miep and Jan for the next seven years. He edited, published, defended, protected, and made sure that his daughter Anne’s legacy, her diary, was read and understood by as many people as possible throughout the world so that atrocities like this may never happen again.
Miep did what she could to support him until he passed away in 1980, then she took up his work until her death at 100 in 2010.
When Otto Frank, Anne Franks father, received the news that Anne and Margot had died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, helper Miep Gies was with him in the office. In this video, she explains how she gave Otto Frank the diaries of Anne Frank. She had saved these papers from the moment the people in hiding were arrested. #annefrank#miepgies#ottofrank#diary#legacy#woii#after
Miep said this of her work during the war: “My story is a story of very ordinary people during extraordinary times, times the like of which I hope with all my heart will never come again. It is for all of us ordinary people, all over the world, to see to it that they do not.”
Time Travel With The History Chicks
Perhaps more than any other subject, this is not an exhaustive list of materials on Miep, Anne, the Holocaust, WWII…it’s simply the ones that we used and can recommend.
Books!
Miep’s memoirWho betrayed the family? By Rosemary Sullivan (also in audiobook narrated by Julia Whelen) One of three versions, this is the most recent, the Definitive VersionFrom Bep’s perspective by her son, Joop Van Wijk-VoskuijlBy Angela WoodBy Carol Ann LeeBy Corrie Ten BoomBy Tim BradyBy Nina Siegal
Kids books:
By Meeg Pincus, Illustrated by Jordi SolanoBy Barbara Lowell, illustrated by Valentina Toro
There were many investigations aimed at revealing the person who betrayed those hiding in the attic, the first one was only a year after the war ended. Here’s an article on one from Anne Frank House website.
Moving Pictures!
1995 documentary based on Miep’s memoirfrom 1988 starring Mary SteenburgenThe most recent adaptation of Miep’s memoir, currently on Disney+ (It’s very good)
Hermine Santrouschitz was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungry on February 15, 1909. Her earliest memories are of the start of what would become World War 1. As the war ravaged her country, it was a tough life in the city as food and work became scarce for her family. That situation became dangerous as malnourishment and tuberculosis hit young Hermine so much, that the only way to save her life was to send her to a foster family outside of Austria.
To leave you with a bit of lagniappe for Women’s History Month, we broke our usual format to sit down for a talk with Anne Sebba, author of the new book, The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz: A Story of Survival. Anne tells us about some of the women in the orchestra, her process of learning about these women, organizing their stories into this book, and about other biographies she’s written in the past, about the past.
If you live in the UK or Australia, you’re in luck, this book is available now. The rest of us have to either wait or become resourceful to get our hands on a copy. But that doesn’t make the conversation Susan and Anne had about the remarkable survivors of the only all women’s orchestra in any Nazi prison camp any less interesting. Anne tells us the history of the orchestra, introduces us to Alma Rosé, an imprisoned celebrity violinist who became the orchestra’s main conductor, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, then a teenage cellist and, most recently, the last surviving member or the orchestra, and the extraordinary Hilde Grünbaum Zimche who recently passed away in 2024 at 100.
The fabulously named orchestra leader, Alma Rosé
Anne, the author of numerous biographies, also tells us about her process for writing the books that we, non-fiction readers, gobble up (hint: it’s a lot longer than it takes us to read them.) To read more about Anne’s work, visit this, her website.
Other things we discussed: The Shoah Foundation, formed after Schindeler’s List movie, whose mission is to “collect, preserve, and share survivor testimonies in order to increase knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust and to build a future for all that rejects antisemitism, hatred, dehumanization, and genocide.”
This book and movie it’s based on:
End music: Way, Way Back by Lvly with Megan Gifford, used with permission from Epidemic Sound
We wrap up our coverage of this brave, trailblazing woman who defied convention, governmental oppression, violence, and financial hurdles (to name a few) to begin the Greenbelt Movement which not only planted 40 million trees and counting, but helped empower women around the world work for bettering themselves and their own communities from the ground up!
Her funeral with glimpses of her unique coffin, her children, and some archival footage of Wangari herself.
Time Travel With The History Chicks
Books!
Her memoirby Wangari Maathaiby Wangari MaathaiBy Namulundah Florence
So many kids’ books!!
by Eucabeth OdiamboPart of the Rebel Girls seriesBy Gwendolyn Hooks, Margaux Carpentierby Jeannete Winterby Maureen McQuerry and Robin Rosenthal
And off-topic but discussed (IYKYN) :
By Libba BrayBy Gwendolyn Hooks and Colin Bootman
Web!
The Green Belt Movement is still very active, here is their website with lots of information about their mission. their work, and their history, and the Wangari Maathai Foundation has a lot of information as well.
The Greenbelt Movement is still active around the world, here is a very recent article about how they are still standing up to the government of Kenya: The Nation (e-paper)
Here is some information on Sagana State Lodge in Kenya where Princess Elizabeth learned she was Queen Elizabeth while Wangari was in school nearby: Sagana Lodge
The Bowery Boys New York City History podcast has several episodes that discuss parts of Central Park, this is a good one to start with: The early years of Central Park.
***We don’t usually add things to our shownotes that we didn’t talk about on the show, but a lovely friend of the show, ELizabeth, shared the One Tree Planted organization with us which is part of the Trillion Tree program that we did talk about. Check them out and help plant trees all over the world!
Wangari Maathai understood the vital connections between living things and the Earth; of local communities and the wider world. It is true that many trees make a mighty forest, and Maathai’s Green Belt Movement made it clear to us all that the most important change for the greater good is one that each individual makes in their own backyard… a philosophy which would earn her the Nobel Peace Prize.
The map that Beckett found up high in an antique store.
