Miep Gies has died at age 100. She was, of course, the woman who preserved Anne Frank's diary.Via The New York Times:
“I am not a hero,” Mrs. Gies wrote in her memoir, “Anne Frank Remembered,” published in 1987. “I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did and more — much more — during those dark and terrible times years ago, but always like yesterday in the heart of those of us who bear witness.”
She was the last of the four people who helped shelter the Franks; she spent the last few years of her life traveling and speaking to people about intolerance.
I am reminded of that scene in "Freedom Writers" when the students write letters to Miep Gies and she comes to speak to them - how they were moved by what she said. I am also reminded about Shreveport's own Holocaust survivor, Rose Van Thyn who I was fortunate enough to hear speak about her Holocaust experience. Rose is still with us, but her husband, Louis Van Thyn, also a survivor, died in 2008.
There are so few of these people left now.
