Rabbi Sarah Wolf

January 15, 2010

In Memory of Miep Gies

A little bit of history has died this week.  Miep Gies, one of the people who helped hide Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis, passed away on Monday at the age of 100.  She was the last surviving member of a group of courageous people who provided for the Franks and another family, the van Pels, for over two years while they lived in secret.  Miep also has the distinction of being the one to find and save Anne’s diary.  Even though Miep has died, her story should not.  So tonight we take some time to remember and honor a brave, humble, and deeply compassionate woman.

Miep had been working for Otto Frank as an office assistant, and had become friends with the Frank family over time.  In 1942, when the Franks knew it was time to go into hiding, Otto asked her for help.  As she describes it, “He took a breath and asked, ‘Miep, are you willing to take on the responsibility of taking care of us while we are in hiding?’  ‘Of course,’ I answered. I thought that to be self-evident.”  She thought it to be self-evident.  No hesitation, no moment’s pause.  She thought it to be self-evident that in spite of the great danger she was exposing herself to, she would, of course, help the Franks hide from the Nazis. 

We might well wonder why it was so easy for Miep to take on such a burden.  Over and over again in interviews and her memoir, Miep insisted that she was not a hero or even a dare-devil, but a regular, cautious person who simply did what she thought necessary.  But it turns out that her own upbringing had a huge influence on her decision.  She explains it this way:

“An important factor in taking this load on my shoulders was my personal history. My home country Austria engaged itself in a war that lasted from 1914 till 1918. It lost everything it once had. Food became very scarce and I, eleven years old, fell ill with tuberculosis. My parents could not give me the nourishment and medicine I needed. Therefore, they accepted the offer from a Dutch family to take me in on a temporary basis….  They already had five kids and had to live on a modest salary. Still they shared everything they had with me and sent me to fine schools. In return for this good fortune, I was now able to help other people.”  Miep’s experience of having been rescued and taken in by strangers meant, for her, that she was obligated to do the same for others.  

What is most striking to me about Miep’s story is how unafraid she was to identify with the families she was helping.  She didn’t just drop off some food and hurry out the door.  She didn’t offer pity or platitudes along with the food and supplies she delivered.  She didn’t want to feel superior or separate in any way.  She was pained at the deference the Franks and van Pels showed her because their utter dependence on her was so plain to see.  So she and her husband Jan gave something even more remarkable than food or clothing: they bore witness to their friends’ suffering by spending a night in the secret annex with them.  As Miep writes, “As I sat, I became aware of what is meant to be imprisoned in these small rooms. As this feeling registered, I felt a taste of the helpless fear that these people were filled with, day and night. Yes, for all of us it was wartime, but Jan and I had the freedom to come and go as we pleased, to stay in or go out. These people were in a prison, a prison with locks inside the doors…. All through the night I heard each ringing of the…clock.  I never slept; I couldn’t close my eyes. I heard the sound of a rainstorm begin, the wind come up.  The quietness of the place was overwhelming. The fright of these people who were locked up here was so thick I could feel it pressing down on me. I was like a thread of terror pulled taut. It was so terrible it never let me close my eyes. For the first time I knew what it was like to be a Jew in hiding.”  Miep voluntarily put herself in the Franks’ shoes to see for herself what their lives were like.  Miep Gies’s life is not simply a story of heroism and courage, though it is certainly both of those things.  It is also a story of radical empathy.  On August 4, 1944, Miep faced the SS officer who came to take the hidden Jews away without flinching.  But perhaps even more extraordinary is the fact that she faced the Frank family and, without flinching, caught a glimpse of her own reflection in their faces. 

In our Torah reading cycle, we are in the middle of another story of rescue and redemption, and our hero, while not quite so certain or unflinching as Miep, is another person who was rescued early in life, and was destined to become a rescuer himself.  Baby Moses is famously sent down the Nile in a basket, his mother hoping to save him from the death decreed by Pharaoh.  He is discovered and drawn out of the river by Pharaoh’s daughter and named “Moshe,” from the word “to draw out.”  An apt name, for Moses will someday draw his people out of the land of Egypt.  Although Moses grows up as an Egyptian, in the palace, no less, his fate as God’s agent of redemption hinges on his identification with the Israelite people.  We read that one day, Moses “went out to his brethren and saw their labors” (Ex. 2:11).  It is this pivotal moment of acknowledging his kinship with the Hebrews that leads him to slay the Egyptian taskmaster and flee to the land of Midian, where the sight of a strange-looking bit of shrubbery will catch his attention and change the course of his life.  Without first seeing that the Hebrews were, in fact, his people and that he was compelled to help them, Moses could not have led the Israelites to freedom.

Every year at the Passover Seder, we retell the story of the Exodus and recite the famous command of the holiday, “In every generation, one is obligated to see himself as if he went out from Egypt.”  This command is not just to keep the story of the Exodus fresh in our minds.  This is a command to see ourselves in every oppressed person, to identify with those who are poor and sick and in need, no matter how distant or different from us they seem.  As Edmond Fleg writes, “In every place where suffering weeps, the Jew weeps.”  Miep Gies was not a Jew, but she lived this lesson.  Most of us will never see an opportunity for heroism like Miep’s.  But the task of truly feeling the pain of the Other, of trying to alleviate it wherever it occurs, can be ours every day.  We are Haitians this week.  Our hearts ache for those who have died, those who lie trapped beneath the rubble, those who search day and night for their children and spouses, those who have lost everything.  We open our hands and we open our hearts to them.  I close tonight with a prayer written by the chief rabbi of England, Jonathan Sacks:

Sovereign of the universe, we join our prayers to the prayers of others throughout the world, for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti which this week has brought destruction and disaster to many lives.  Almighty God, we pray you, send healing to the injured, comfort to the bereaved, and news to those who sit and wait.  May you be with those who even now are engaged in the work of rescue.  May You send Your strength to those who are striving to heal the injured, give shelter to the homeless, and bring food and water to those in need. May You bless the work of their hands, and may they merit to save lives.

Almighty God, we recognize how small we are, and how powerless in the face of nature when its full power is unleashed. Therefore, open our hearts in prayer and our hands in generosity, so that our words may bring comfort and our gifts bring aid. Be with us now and with all humanity as we strive to mend what has been injured and rebuild what has been destroyed. Ken Yehi Ratzon, ve-nomar Amen.