Anne Frank: A History for Today

The recent death of Miep Gies, the last surviving and best-known helper of Anne Frank and her family, is a poignant reminder of the Anne Frank story.

New Zealanders will soon be able to learn more about Anne Frank and Miep Gies when the Anne Frank travelling exhibition, Anne Frank - A History for Today, opens at Te Papa in February as the first stop of a three-year national tour.

Miep Gies died on Monday in the Netherlands aged 100. Mrs Gies, along with three other people, kept Anne Frank and her family supplied with food for two years as they hid in a secret annex to avoid being captured and deported by the Nazis during the Second World War.

The Frank family went into hiding in 1942 in a series of cramped rooms at the back of Anne’s father’s offices. They relied on four helpers to bring them their food and other necessities. Mrs Gies was one of these people, risking her life everyday to help the Jewish Frank family keep safe during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam.

It was while she was in hiding that Anne wrote her famous diary, which has become one of the most well known and lasting accounts of the Holocaust.

The diary would not have been known today were it not for Miep Gies, who found it in the annex after the family had been arrested by the Nazis. Mrs Gies picked up the diary for safekeeping, always intending to give it back to Anne one day. However, Anne died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp just a few weeks before the war ended, so Mrs Gies instead gave the diary to Otto, Anne’s father.

Today, the Diary of Anne Frank has been translated into 70 different languages and is one of the most read books in the world

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