Miep Gies was born in Vienna in 1909 as Hermine Santruschitz. She lived through the First World War there, and became undernourished due to the food scarcity. Fortunately for her, aged 11 she was given the opportunity to recuperate with a foster family in the Netherlands.

Miep Santruschitz left school at the age of 18 and found a job as an office assistant. When she lost her first job in 1933 on account of the economic  crisis, she was fortunate to find a new job quickly at the Nederlandsche Opekta company of Otto Frank – though this job actually started in the kitchen…

Miep and Jan Gies met each other as colleagues around 1930, became friends, fell in love, found two boarding rooms in 1940 with the help of Otto Frank, and finally tied the knot on July 16, 1942.

Otto Frank had been Miep Gies's employer since 1933, but through the frequent dinners and coffee with cake on Saturday afternoons or evenings at the home of Otto and Edith Frank, a deep friendship grew between the Frank family and Miep and Jan Gies.

During the two years and almost 2 months that the families Frank, Van Pels and Dr. Pfeffer spent in hiding in the Secret Annex, Miep Gies, as one of the helpers, was responsible for their daily grocery shopping.

Otto Frank turned out to be the only one of the eight hiders in the Secret Annex to survive the concentration camps. In the summer of 1945 he rang the doorbell of Miep and Jan Gies. Miep was able to give him Anne's diaries, after which Otto Frank had his daughter's work published in 1947. He was to stay with Miep and Jan, including their son Paul who was born in 1950, until 1953.

Here you can watch some excerpts from television reports in which Miep Gies recounts the time that she knew the Frank family and helped them, the Van Pels family and the dentist Dr. Pfeffer during their time in hiding in the Secret Annex on Prinsengracht in Amsterdam, from July 6, 1942 until August 4, 1944.

Miep Gies possesses a number of special historical documents. You can view a selection of these below.