Anne Frank Remembered

ANNE FRANK REMEMBERED

Anne Frank Remembered, is written by Miep Gies one of the Dutch citizens who hid the Frank family during the war. In this book, Miep describes how Holland was slowly overtaken by the Nazis. The main point of the book was describing how the Franks hid and what she did to help them survive during their long hard days of hiding.

The book starts out with Miep describing how she came to Amsterdam in 1914 at the age of five from Austria via a child transport for children during the First World War. Even after the war she remained in Amsterdam with her adoptive family because it would have been difficult for her to readapt herself to life in Vienna since most of her childhood was spent in Amsterdam.

Miep's first acquaintance with Otto Frank, Anne Frank's father was in 1933 when she was twenty four years old. She had been out of a job for several months when she was offered a temporary position in Travies and Company, which was run by Otto Frank. Otto had recently come over from Germany to start a division of his former business in Amsterdam a safer place for Jews to live. He wanted to make sure the business would build up before he brought over his wife and two children.

Miep started out as an assistant making jam for the company and eventually worked her way up to becoming the office manager. She became very close with Otto Frank and eventually his family when they arrived in Amsterdam. Miep details in the book how she spent many Sunday dinners with the Frank family in their apartment in South Amsterdam. She talks about Otto's two children Margot and Anne; Margot was six and Anne was four. Miep was able to communicate with Otto's wife and children because she herself was fluent in the German language which created a special connection between her and the Frank family. At the same time, Miep met her future husband Hank Giep who had the same outlook as her in life, he was also friendly with Jews and did not like the Germans.

Starting in 1939, the Dutch people became nervous that Hitler was very strong and they were afraid that he would try and attack Holland. Queen Wilhelmina, the queen of Holland constantly told the nation that she would hold on and never give into Hitler, on May 10, 1940 she tearfully told radio listeners that "the Germans had attacked our beloved Holland. We were being invaded; but we were fighting back."