← The History Chicks : A Women's History Podcast
The History Chicks : A Women's History Podcast
Miep Gies Part 2
02:09:05
Miep Gies risked her life in order to help her Jewish friends hide from the Nazis during World War 2. In Part 2 of her story, we'll take you through the years of struggle and subterfuge, the dark day when the Secret Annex was raided, and how Miep saved Anne Frank's writings from destruction. Anne's diary is one of the most significant historical documents of the 20th century, providing a deeply personal account of life during the Holocaust. Said Miep of her work during the war: "My story is a story of very ordinary people during extraordinary times, times the like of which I hope with all my heart will never come again. It is for all of us ordinary people all over the world to see to it that they do not."Miep Gies risked her life in order to help her Jewish friends hide from the Nazis during World War 2. In Part 2 of her story, we'll take you through the years of subterfuge, the dark day when the Secret Annex was raided, and how Miep saved the pages of Anne's Diary that would ...
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- [00:01]
Holly Frey
Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.
- [00:09]
Maria Tatar
Hello and welcome back to the show. Today is the second part of our coverage of Meep Geese. We recommend that you go ahead and listen to part one before this. And as a matter of fact, you might want to even go back and listen to our Anne Frank episode before proceeding. Nevertheless, since you're here, we'll give you a teeny, tiny recap of what we covered in part one.
- [00:34]
Holly Frey
When we left Miep in part one, it was 1942. She's 33 years old. She was a naturalized citizen of the Netherlands. Born in Austria, raised in Amsterdam. She married a Dutch citizen and had worked in the offices of Opecta. It was a company that primarily produced and sold pectin for making jam and spices for making sausage. Miep was very close to her boss and his family, the Franks. Otto, Edith, Margot and Anne. It's World War II. The German Nazis had recently taken control of the Netherlands and they were instituting their antisemitic laws. The Frank family was Jewish. At the end of Part one, Otto Frank had just asked Miep if the Frank family were to go into hiding, would Miep do what she could to help them stay that way? Meep didn't hesitate for one second.
- [01:26]
Maria Tatar
She said, of course, even though the penalty for helping Jewish people went all the way up to being executed and certainly extended to being sent away to a work camp. There were very, very high stakes. And Meep did not hesitate, not at all.
- [01:44]
Holly Frey
She didn't ask a lot of questions. She figured that the less she knew, the less she had to confess if she was ever under the very real possibility of being questioned by the Nazi authorities. She did ask her husband Jan, who was a social worker and who had also begun working for a resistance organization, if he would help as well. And he said, sure, yes.
- [02:07]
Maria Tatar
So there had been. It was a very unreal state of affairs. The Nazis, of course, began in Germany and then moved to Austria and to Poland and countries across Europe. And as they came, their anti Semitic laws came with them. Tighter and tighter they got. And even it extended to non Jewish people discovered there were suddenly rules and regulations that emerged out of nowhere. But for the non Jewish population, I'm sorry to say, life could go on as normal if they didn't think too hard about it. You know, at least here in the beginning, they were all frogs in a pot. And some felt the heat earlier than others. Eventually, everyone would be in trouble.
- [02:58]
Holly Frey
Well, they had started changing these laws. The Nazis had Gotten people into power as early as 1935, they started putting laws into action to ultimately reach their goal, which was to eliminate the entire Jewish population first from Germany than from Europe. In German occupied countries, that was their goal. It took many years to get there. But it's 1942, they're getting close. Some of these laws were so controlling. For instance, at one point, Jewish people could only name their children from an approved list of names that the Nazis created. And if they already had a name that sounded like it could be German. And we are talking German people here. For German Jewish people who had names that were not on this approved list, the men had to add the name Israel, the women had to add the name Sarah so they could tell they were Jewish right from the get go.
- [03:58]
Maria Tatar
In some countries, of course, they came in like a wrecking ball. Poor old Poland, it was fast, it was furious. It was extremely violent. Similarly in Austria, when they got to the Netherlands, they had had at the outset the Germans some idea that the non Jewish population of the Netherlands could be brethren. You know, the, the blonde blue eyed people of the Netherlands were, were really just like us and so we shouldn't treat them harshly. And I have to say the Nazis were very, very surprised when there was a. We talked about this in part one, a widespread general strike. So in the Netherlands in particular for a while there was a little bit of subterfuge. They would issue all these exceptions like, oh, we'll give you Jewish person an exception to this rule, lulling them into a false sense of security so they could sweep them up more easily at a later date. For a while they left the orphanages alone, they left the old age homes alone, they left the hospitals alone for a while so that the Jewish population would concentrate themselves in those areas and be easier to take. Kind of on the low, low.
- [05:16]
Holly Frey
And if you were not Jewish at this time, you could look at all these laws and say, well, just follow the laws and you'll be fine. It's the law, just follow it. What's the problem? But the problem was that these laws were impossible for people to follow. I mean, we talked about it in the last episode right before this, it had become illegal, illegal against the law for Jewish people to have a bicycle.
- [05:39]
Maria Tatar
Or to be at a pool or a library or to attend school with non Jewish children. As a matter of fact, we are now at the point where it was not only frowned on, but almost illegal for Aryan and Jewish Jewish people to associate in any way at all.
- [06:00]
Holly Frey
And it had been illegal for a long Time for Jewish people and non Jewish people to marry or to even have marital relations.
- [06:10]
Maria Tatar
And what were all these laws? What were all these processes leading up to? What was the ultimate goal? What could possibly be the reason for all of this extreme just boot on the neck of the population?
- [06:25]
Holly Frey
It was called the Final Solution. And the ultimate goal was the complete extermination of Jewish people. First in Germany and then in German occupied countries across Europe. That was the goal.
- [06:37]
Maria Tatar
So under that umbrella of looming evil, life went on. I mean, life does go on. Life went on. But there was a lot of. The air was thick with fear and stress and thought processes and planning. Mr. Van Pels, the Jewish. He's the real head of the Spice Division. Although by now he's been replaced on paper by one of the Christian employees. He would take Meep out at lunchtime to a certain butcher for no reason. Like what? They. I really enjoy walking with you, Mr. Van Pels. What are we doing here? And there was nothing really said. He'd buy some little item and then they'd go back to the office. Over and over this happened. No one explained anything. And she didn't want to be rude or whatever. I mean, she liked him. Okay. It was a nice little walk, it turns out it was actually so that the butcher would recognize Miep later. But no one told anyone anything in this time and place until they absolutely had to. So Meep didn't know that that was happening, that the butcher was learning to associate Mr. Van Pels with Miep's face. This is my friend who's going to be acting on my behalf. You can be open with this lady, but we're not going to say anything. Just associate her face with me, you know.
- [08:02]
Holly Frey
On July 3rd of 1942, Margot Frank got her final grades for the previous school year. She got wonderful grades, her sister Ann said. She's brilliant, as usual. But two days later, Margot got what Jewish people all over the country, all over German occupied Europe, were getting. And it was a summons to leave in 11 days for a work camp. They called it a work camp. Here's a list of things you should bring. You know, it sounds just like camp. Bring your winter clothes, bring boots. We're going to put you to work. But Mr. Frank knew. I mean, Mr. Frank had a lot of foresight. These are people that had been listening to illegal radio every single night. They knew what was going on around Europe. And they knew that work camp was synonymous with the end of Margo's life or anybody that went to them.
- [08:56]
Maria Tatar
It was Mr. Van Pels, who came to Miep's door one night and told Miep and Jan that Margot Frank had been called up for forced labor and the time to go into hiding was now. Miep and Jan went to get whatever they could get out of the Franks house. Because you can't be seen packing. You can't trust everyone. You can't really trust anyone.
- [09:23]
Holly Frey
It was July and it wasn't raining, but Miep and Yan put raincoats on because they knew that as soon as they got to the Franks house, they were going to need to start transporting things to get the Franks ready to move out.
- [09:35]
Maria Tatar
Under the cloak of darkness, there was a complication. The Franks had been renting rooms to someone who had to be kept in the dark. This is just crazy that Miep and Jan are moving about the Franxx apartment with this other person there. And they had to have indicated to them things that. Could you secrete this somewhere in bootleg it out of here?
- [10:02]
Holly Frey
I imagined it as one of those situations where out loud someone says, Mrs. Frank, how are you tonight? And then quietly Mrs. Frank is saying, you know, here's some of the kids clothes. Shove them in your pockets. And then out loud someone saying, I am so well, how are you? And then Meep and Yan like putting on clothes layer after layer, if they could. The Franks had been housing Jewish refugees as a temporary situation for quite some time. I mean, they had opened up their home to a lot of people. It just happened that right now there was only one person in the house. It was one. It was a single man. He had no idea. And they had to keep it that way.
- [10:43]
Maria Tatar
Meep and Jan were running a risk even going to that house. Jews and non Jews were forbidden to mix. They were forbidden to have even bonds or friendship. So them calling on the Franks at all in person could have been reported. So not only that, now they have stuff in their pockets. Had they been stopped? How are you going to explain why are your pockets full of shoes? You know, yeah, whose underwear is that in your shirt type of thing? Right. So they're already running a risk. But Meep, oh my gosh, I can't even think about this. Meep ran the biggest risk the very next day. Luckily, the skies opened up and it was raining like the dickens. Thank goodness. That may have been a contributing factor in their success. But Margot had not turned in her bicycle when everyone was ordered to. They kept one behind. And the next day, after the scavenger hunt of things, Miep called on Margot. And together the two young women bicycled through the streets as if they were ordinary office workers headed to be the one to unlock the door and make the coffee for the big bosses. Oh, we're just co workers going to work together. Margot, in defiance of an extremely strict, well punished law, did not have a yellow star on her coat. Had she been stopped and her ID checked that the consequences are dire. And the two young women cycled to the office. Miep parked her bike. Margo parked her bike. Someone, I think it was Mr. Kleeman, took Margot's bike somewhere. Took it or airlifted it somewhere. Meep didn't even know where it went. And together, the two young women climbed the stairs to the landing.
- [12:36]
Holly Frey
Meep left Margo in the rooms. She didn't go in with her. She just said, margo, you're going to have to be quiet. You're just going to have to sit still until later tonight. And then she had to go downstairs and go throughout her day, just like it was any other day, and get work done. I don't know how she could possibly do that.
- [12:55]
Maria Tatar
Miep described taking Margot to the door. And they opened the door, and it was momentous. And Margot stepped from the real world into the hidden world. And the two young women faced each other across the threshold. And then Miep shut the door.
- [13:14]
Holly Frey
Later in the day, the rest of the Franks, Mr. Frank, Edith Frank, and showed up just like they would on a normal day. You know, let's go to work with dad. But they didn't come out. They also went right up to the rooms in the upper floor of this building and stayed there. Later on that day, when nobody was in the offices anymore, Miep got brave and she went upstairs. And when she did finally go into the rooms, she saw everything that Mr. Frank and Mr. Van Pels had put there. There was bags and boxes. It was a mess. It was not organized. Clearly, they had hoped that they had more time to get things in order, but they had been putting in foodstuffs and, you know, things that they were going to need to stay in hiding for quite some time. Miep was just blown away at the amount of things that they had been able to get up there, to squirrel up there without anybody knowing it.
- [14:11]
Maria Tatar
Not even Meep knew that had been going on. That's how compartmentalized a lot of the resistance was. You know, never let someone know, because if someone gets found out, all they can tell is just what they know. There was furniture up there, shelf, stable, food, clothing, soap, supplies of every kind, really.
- [14:30]
Holly Frey
Per Otto Frank's instructions, a few Days after they had gone up into hiding, Miep and Jan had gone back to the Franks house and talked with that border. They were worried. They hadn't seen Mr. Frank in days. Did he know where they went, where he was, Was everything okay? And the border told them that he had found a slip of paper. There was an address on it which was kind of on the Belgian border. It was exactly where anyone traveling from Amsterdam to Switzerland, where Mr. Frank had family, they would have gone on that route. The border assumed that the Franks had fled to Amsterdam. And that was the word in the neighborhood. So the gossip is going around that's where the Franks went. It was very common for Jewish families at this time to just disappear. But in the neighborhood, it was just assumed that the Franks had fled to Switzerland just like they had fled from Germany to Amsterdam.
- [15:25]
Maria Tatar
And that was the safest thing to do, is create a smokescreen.
- [15:31]
Holly Frey
I know we covered Anne Frank before, but I'm just blown away again by how much forethought this man had. Because that slip of paper, he left it there to be found with an address. Who cares what that address was? You know, he left it there for this very thing to happen right upstairs.
- [15:50]
Maria Tatar
The Franks had to look around and take stock of what supplies they had to begin their new life. Everything they'd been able to bring from their apartments and all the supplies that were stacked willy nilly around their hiding place. Look around your house and if you had eight hours to use to pack a small amount of things to take with you, what would you take? And that's what the Franks were facing. Anne herself had a heartbreak ahead of her. Her cat couldn't be taken. They couldn't have a cat up in the attic. Number one, it was a mouth to feed, of course. Number two, you can't control noise, footsteps, the cat jumping from somewhere, meows. It just wasn't possible. The cat was going to have to be left behind. There's a little bit of irony to this in that Peter Van Pels actually did bring his cat. His family hadn't thought it through as completely as Mr. Frank had. So one of the cats got to stay. The other cat had to stay with some neighbors. I think Mr. Frank made the best decision he could at the time with his information that he had. And all the Franks had to make some hard calls. And so only their most important or useful possessions made it with them into the hiding place.
- [17:19]
Holly Frey
So as they were really scrambling to leave, Anne looked about and she kept asking her parents, can I bring this? You know, she had her cat, the parents were like no. Her books, her toys, you know, all of her clothes. Clothes, things that she really cherished she could not bring with her. But there was one item that was especially special to her. It was a plaid covered diary that she had just gotten for her birthday weeks beforehand. Ann loved this diary. She wanted to be a writer. She was excited to fill the pages. And she was able to take that diary with her into hiding, one of the few possessions that she had.
- [18:21]
Maria Tatar
You know how you and I talk about how future historians are not going to be finding treasure troves of papers and photos in people's attics anymore anymore, Right. And then, you know, you look at your phone and there's thousands. I mean, in my case, I think there's 13,000 pictures in this phone right now.
- [18:39]
Holly Frey
And then when you get rid of it, you don't have them anymore.
- [18:42]
Maria Tatar
Yeah. And you never really get around to printing them. You mean to, right.
- [18:45]
Holly Frey
You don't have albums in your hand anymore or pictures on the wall. Well, there's a way that we can have those pictures with a company called Mixtiles in my office. I have taken one picture from each of our trips, had it printed out and they march around the office. Yes, I love it. That's what you can get at Mixtiles.
- [19:05]
Maria Tatar
So they turn your memories into meaningful art.
- [19:09]
Holly Frey
And if you have any blank walls in your house that you just want some pictures on, Mixtiles is going to help you get those photographs. They come, they're framed, they're beautiful and they are artistic. They can show you exactly what it's going to look like on your wall. I just ordered some last weekend. I have these three portraits of my kids. They're senior portraits on a wall and there's nothing else on it. So I went through all my old photos. I found some photos from when they were growing up and I ordered a bunch of them from Mix Tiles. And I'm going to make a collage around those large senior portraits. I had all my photos printed into two different sizes. There's some horizontal, some vertical, and they all have a white border around them and a white frame so it'll all be cohesive. I think just getting ideas from their website was the best thing I did. It was so fun.
- [20:03]
Maria Tatar
That sounds really cute. And they're movable.
- [20:06]
Holly Frey
How much would I have loved this when I lived in an apartment and wouldn't have had to go around putting all the spackle when I moved out? They have this magnetic mounting system. You just peel it and stick it and adjust it and then when you're done, you just take it off. How easy is that?
- [20:21]
Maria Tatar
So turn your favorite memories into stunning, affordable wall art. For a limited time, our listeners get 35% off on all orders above $139.
- [20:32]
Holly Frey
Just head to mixtiles.com and use code Chicks and you're all set. That's Code Chicks, tiles.com.
- [20:39]
Maria Tatar
And after you buy, do us a favor. When they ask where you heard about Mixtiles, tell them it was from our show. So the Frank family is in hiding. And we described the interior of the hiding place in our Anne Frank episode. So if you would like to break away here for more sort of interior thoughts, what was going on inside of there, this would be a great time to do that just real quick. It had three bedrooms and a bathroom and a main room stacked on the second and third floors, over the kitchen and over Mr. Frank's old office, which was now going to be Mr. Kleemon's office. For a little bit of extra safety, Miep would go up every morning to get a shopping list from Mrs. Frank and share some news, although she quickly realized she had to censor herself and not reveal too much. The Franks would ask about neighbors and friends and she quickly learned that she had to be a little bit evasive or pretend she didn't know what was happening because outside things were getting dicier by the moment. So she would take her shopping list, of which we have some photos, to put on our Pinterest board, and she would go out and do quote her errands on her lunch break. Just like any other office worker we had. The kind butcher who was risking a lot knowing who she was and supplying her with way too much food for a two person household. The produce man wordlessly dropping bags of potatoes off on his rounds. There were six people outside in on the secret. A young girl named Elizabeth, who was called Bep for short, had been hired as a sort of a junior admin a while ago, as well as later her father, Mr. Voskiel, who ran the warehouse. That's two. Meep and Yan, that's four. Mr. Kleiman, of course, and Mr. Kugler. And that was it.
- [22:59]
Holly Frey
And just remember, if you've ever read the diary, they were given pseudonyms in the diary. So if those names don't sound familiar to you, that's why those are their real names. When Anne wrote her diary, she gave everybody a pseudonym. She thought everybody was going to survive the war and she wanted to protect their privacy, so she gave everybody pseudonyms. Including herself. Did call herself Ann, but she was Ann Ollis or Ann Robin. Then Margot was Betty Robin, Otto was Friedrich Robin, and Edith was Nora Robin. She also gave pseudonyms to who she was writing the diary for. A lot of her entries begin with Dear Kitty in the published versions. But she also had Pop fiend, Emmy, Marianne, Jetty, Connie, Jackie. There's several different names that she was writing these correspondences to. When the diary was edited later by Otto, he kept the pseudonyms for everyone except for the Frank family.
- [24:02]
Maria Tatar
Another set of people who had pseudonyms in the diary were the Van Pelses, Herman Auguste, the wife, and Peter, their son. And they appeared in the annex about a week after the Franks had. So now the secret annex is holding seven people for whom the outside helpers are now responsible. They divided the labor. Meep was in charge of vegetables and meat. We've already sort of talked about two of the people that helped her do that. She also had the responsibility for getting books, which is a little more dangerous than you would think. Books have become more contraband than in days gone by. And you also had to be careful what books you were seen with or caught with. Bep, Elizabeth was responsible for bread and milk. And also later she signed up for so many correspondence courses, people must have thought she was, you know, Hermione Granger or something, a self improvement nut. She was the one that signed up for all the correspondence courses that Anne and Margot and Peter and everyone upstairs were the ones that actually did it. Mr. Coogler and Mr. Kleeman, of course, ran the company and some say cooked the books to finagle financing for the hiders upstairs.
- [25:22]
Holly Frey
We had mentioned a little bit ago about Bep's father, Johan Foskel. He helped out every once in a while. He wasn't on the ground in the building every day, but he knew what was going on. And he did, you know, what he could.
- [25:36]
Maria Tatar
He did have one thing he did that was absolutely critical to the survival and success of the secret annex. And we'll talk about that in just a second. And then, of course, Jan was in charge of ration cards and also, like widespread sort of news. Not neighborhood news, just the umbrella overall. What are the allies doing? What's on radio orange type of thing. All of the helpers had to be exceedingly careful. To the outside world, they had to appear as relaxed as possible to protect those they were helping. It was a lot. So you had to protect the people upstairs from the outside. You had to protect your psyche from both outside and inside. It was A lot. It was a lot of burden to carry.
- [26:25]
Holly Frey
Meep and Yan were going about their day just like it was normal. Go to work, come home, have dinner, maybe go out with a friend or something. But remember, they live in the house of someone else. They're renting rooms. Their landlady's name was Stoppelman. Mrs. Stoppelman's daughter and son in law and their two small children tried once again to get out of the country. Unfortunately, the daughter and the son in law were both captured. Trying to do this. Some mysterious woman got her hands on the children and brought them back to their grandmother, Mrs. Stoppelman's house. So now there are two small children living in the house whose parents have disappeared. Jan was able to contact a organization run by college students that would help children get out of the city and into safe homes away from Amsterdam. Jewish children. And so within a week of those two children appearing back at their house, the children were able to be sent out into the country.
- [27:30]
Maria Tatar
Complicating this was the fact that Mrs. Stoppelman had been nervous about remaining, and Miep was able to get her a home with her foster parents. So Mrs. Stoppelman wasn't even home when they got the knock on the door. And a 100% random woman just says, I was asked to leave the children here. And then she vaporized. So I'm imagining the scene, the scene when the police get a hold of these parents and they shove them randomly at a woman. You know, you always tell the kids, when you're lost, find a mom, right? Just out of desperation, all she could think to do was shove her small children toward a random woman and hope that it got through. You know? You know, you always read this and you think that it's just a story. These are actual people. Like, imagine your neighbor that has small children. That's the only resort they have is to find some random person in a crowd and throw their children that direction before they get taken away. These aren't superheroes. These are just regular people who are suddenly caught up in absolute hell. That story always gets me just.
- [28:37]
Holly Frey
I know.
- [28:38]
Maria Tatar
And, you know, honestly, all this wartime bravery that I'm reading about from Dutch people everywhere is a little humbling. I mean, the food store owners are risking a lot. We already mentioned that. Jan's connections that provided the ration cards, people raising Jewish children as their own. That's all over Germany, Austria, whatever. Nuns hiding Jewish children among the students at their schools. A woman who worked in an office just around the corner from the secret annex had A father whose country patients sometimes paid in food, which she brought into town and gave to Miep. Mr. Kleeman's friend was a baker who not only supplied bread to the office, but fronted the money. You can pay me back after the war's over. And the lady that brought the kids to the doorstep. All these acts of mercy and assistance were totally illegal, yet absolutely moral. You know, when kindness is against the law, good people are going to do what they do. This is actually exactly the year when a 13 year old Audrey Hepburn, who was going by Etta von Heemstra, thought, better not to have an allied adjacent name. Etta von Heemstra was running fake IDs and ration cards in her lunch pail. But the sad part is you don't know when you're walking around who the good people are. You know, you don't. You don't know who the brave people are. You don't know who's helping and who's gonna turn you in, right? To that end, you never know what customer is gonna come in the office, who's going to come in and ask for directions. That door is too tempting to open. And so Bep's father, Mr. Vosquel, had an idea.
- [30:23]
Holly Frey
He built a bookcase. And it was on a hinge, so it was able to cover the stairway up to the annex, close when the people were up there and nobody could get in otherwise, it just looked like a bookcase that stored paperwork for the office. No one would suspect anything at this point. The helpers were all bringing things. They were, you know, bringing food, they were getting requests for items and trying to find it. One point, Jan was bringing a radio piece by piece up to the annex, you know, just one piece at a time, getting it up there so they could build a radio to listen to after everyone had gone home. Another thing that the helpers did that was probably one of the most crucial was to provide companionship. Meep would go up there at the beginning of the day and get that shopping list. And then later she would come up and sit and visit and just talk with them. Not even about anything serious, but just about simple things. You know, it's a beautiful day outside, or what are we having for dinner? They would have Meep and Yan over for dinner. And Ann. Ann wanted them to have a sleepover. I mean, how normal is that, having your friends coming for a sleepover? And Meep kept saying, no, we can't today, we can't today. And finally she said, okay, we will. And Miep and Jan went and had a sleepover in the annex. They stayed in Ann's room. Ann went and stayed with her sister. And it was just a bit of normalcy. And that's, I think, one of the most valuable things that these companions or these helpers did for the people that were in hiding.
- [32:04]
Maria Tatar
However, Miep wrote in her autobiography that the entire time she was sleeping over there, she experienced, and I quote, terror pulled tight. As bad as she had it outside, her friends in the annex had no relief. And I would like to quote directly from her book. Every time I pulled the bookcase aside, I had to set a smile on my face and disguise the bitter feeling that burned in my heart. I would take a breath, pull the bookcase closed, and put on an air of calm and good cheer that it was otherwise impossible to feel anywhere in Amsterdam anymore. My friends upstairs were not to be upset, not to be privy to any of my anguish.
- [32:48]
Holly Frey
The people in hiding were just so kind when it came to Jan and Miep's anniversary. You know, they had been at their wedding. They had a special dinner for Jan and Miep, and Ann wrote out a whole menu for the dinner, like, set the table real pretty and had a special dinner for them. I mean, that just seems so normal, you know, kind of like the dinners that they would have back in their house before they went into hiding.
- [33:14]
Maria Tatar
In 1943, when Miep was 34, the elegant lady in a country estate who was now hiding, the landlady, Mrs. Stoppelman. The elegant lady needed a favor back. Her son Kuno had refused to sign the Aryan Loyalty Oath at his university. And now he had to hide. He had to hide because that was unacceptable. And he was now to go to work camp because he didn't sign the oath. And that reminds me a lot of Miep not joining her Nazi girls group. Right. They took it very seriously. So Kuno was in trouble, and he had to go into hiding somewhere. And the elegant lady asked that he be allowed to come live at Miep and Jan's house. And here's the rationale. The Germans were known for being very. Almost like a blinkered. When they searched for a thing, they sort of disregarded other things. So if he could be a lodger at Mipignon's house in the Jewish quarter, where they were looking for Jewish people and not for conscientious objectors, that would be great. Like, yeah, oh, my gosh, that's also a lot of risk because you're trusting to sort of a cartoon version of Germanness that may or may not Be true when it comes down to the point, right? So you. You have a. I mean, how much are you going to lay on me, Pignon? I don't know. But they said yes. But outside, the pressure was building, and she couldn't help everyone. There was so much need, and there was so much despair. And Miep recalled looking around and seeing elderly people had been kicked out of where they'd been hiding. And it was increasingly hard to find safe hidey holes for anyone. And Meep had to pass people that were in obvious need of help. And she wrote, as much as I wanted to help them, the old woman I had passed and other people like her, I knew I had to be prudent. I had more than just myself to think about. So, like many others in the Netherlands, I looked away. I went in and shut my door. My heart had torn open.
- [35:25]
Holly Frey
That's something that would haunt her for the rest of her life. And just hearing it, it haunts you, you know, because you can only do so much. I mean, even now in today in society, you can only do so much. There was somebody that she could help. Miep had been going to a dentist named Fritz Pfeffer. Now, Fritz was Jewish, and he was prohibited from not only treating Christian people, but he is not supposed to be pract being a dentist at all, but he was Jewish. People still needed their teeth to be worked on. And Miep had gone to him. She thought he was a wonderful dentist. She kept going to him, and one day he was like, I think I'm going to need to find a place to hide. And she said, well, I don't know. Let me see if I can talk to people. There might be something somebody can do. So she went up to the hiding place and talked with the people up there. And she said, there's this Jewish dentist. He's wonderful. They knew him. Can he come and stay with you? This is your decision. No hard feelings if you say no. And they decided, well, if we're feeding seven people, we could feed eight. We can find room for him. So Meep went back to him and said, well, I think that there's somebody that can help you find a place. If you go to this corner on this day, somebody will guide you. And the dentist said, no, I can't. I'm finishing up a procedure that day. For a patient who's been a patient of mine for a long time, I cannot go that day. I mean, the loyalty he had to his patients, that would make me bend over backwards even more. And that's exactly what Meep did. So they arranged it for another day. And somebody did meet him on that corner and brought him to Opecta, brought him up to the annex. And he was just so shocked to see that it was Meep. You know, Miep was. Had the place for him. He had no idea that's how good she was at covering what was going on behind the scenes in her life. He had no idea that she would be the one that would be able to help him like that.
- [37:20]
Maria Tatar
In Anne Frank's journal, Mr. Pfeffer is called Mr. Dussel. By then, the tensions upstairs were thick enough to cut. You can tell by reading the diary his name was Pfeffer. But Dussel, her pseudonym for him, means blockhead in German. So I'm glad they changed it back, Mr. Dussel. That's not very nice, is it? Now the helpers had 11 mouths to feed, if you count the man at home who's hiding from a different section of the German government. And supplies got tighter and tighter. Soap was hard to come by. Clothes were falling apart and couldn't be replaced. Rations were dwindling. The Germans were sending all of that good chocolate milk, butter and cheese over to the Fatherland. And also farmers were afraid to come into town to sell their wares. So, oh, it's. It's getting tighter and tighter. And the building got sold. They found out when a man arrived at the door, hello, I'm the new owner of this building. I'd like to look around my new establishment. And they had to do a lot of tap dancing and pretend that they couldn't find the key. And they would look around and give him a call. And so from now on, every single day, layered on all the other stressors were that that guy would come back and comprehend that there was extra space or a door. Should have been where the bookcase is. He never did come back. But we know that now. But they didn't know that then.
- [38:52]
Holly Frey
Right.
- [38:52]
Maria Tatar
So every day a guy could come and blow it out of the water.
- [38:56]
Holly Frey
Yeah. Things could easily fall apart like they did for Kuno, the teenager that they had living in their house. He would go out during the daytime and just go out around the city. One day he got caught and he came back to their house, and he's like, oh, I got caught, but it's okay because I'm here now. And they said, well, what did they ask you? They said, well, they asked for my address. So I just gave him this one. And Jan and Meep were just looking at each other like you did what now? Excuse me. Because now they're going to come looking for you here. They had to say, that's it. I'm so sorry, you cannot stay here anymore. It is too dangerous for you to stay here. Kuno did leave, and he did eventually come back when they all felt that the coast was clear. But that's how dangerous it was. He knew, they knew he messed up. He took time away, and then he would eventually come back and stay at the apartment again.
- [39:51]
Maria Tatar
The family and friends, the hiders that were upstairs, would come down and listen to that illegal radio that Jan had snuck in piece by piece. Which reminds me of. Could it be an urban legend? I don't know. But how people, army guys in Korea would ship jeeps home piece by piece.
- [40:11]
Holly Frey
Right.
- [40:12]
Maria Tatar
I'm interested enough to look that up when we're done recording to see if that's real, because that. That's intriguing to me, but. So he really did get this radio in piece by piece and assemble it. But it was very, very dange. And sometimes, and this boggles my mind, and I guess you can't be diligent every second, even though you really have to be. And it wasn't maybe as boneheaded as the college student going to the racetrack, but this is boneheaded that when the hiders were done listening to the radio, they often just left their chairs in a circle around the radio and went back upstairs, trusting to Meep and Bep to fix the chairs in the morning. Well, there were several occasions where there were burglaries downstairs or attempted burglaries in the night. People were getting desperate for supplies. And it wasn't necessarily some kind of nebulous, quote, criminal class of people, but when people are starving, they'll take any opportunity. And so there were quite a few occasions where they heard noises downstairs and realized that a window had been broken into. And there are those chairs sitting around the radio downstairs. It's not good. And there was a giant bounty on Jewish people's heads right now, almost an irresistible opportunity for someone to turn them in and get a giant payday. It's mistakes like that that could have spelled the end for them. Bep's poor papa, who had built the bookcase, had been diagnosed with cancer. And he was replaced with a man that no one ever fully trusted in the warehouse, you know. So one of the helpers got replaced by maybe not as overtly hostile as the Nazi admin who, hooray, took herself out early in our story in part one. But still, you know, no one really could trust Him. And it was very stressful outside. It was getting dicey for everybody. I mean, just when you think you've hit an all time low, oh no, there's no bottom to this box. That fall, Germans began to start seizing Dutch non Jewish men to ship off to labor camps in Germany. Arbeits Einsatz was the name of the program. It was enforced labor factories, construction of defenses against the Allies, farm labor. They weren't concentration camps, but neither were they supplied with enough food and respect, and neither were they paid wages. So slave labor. On April 29, 1943, triggered by the German authorities attempt to send hundreds of thousands of former soldiers from the Netherlands to these work camps, it triggered a widespread. Half a million people ended up participating in it. It was called the milk strike. And it was another widespread nationwide labor stoppage. The Germans retaliated as we knew they would. They don't have any patience for this anymore. They put people up on billboards that they were looking for and when they found them, they were publicly executed. Now, if you were an average non soldier Dutch man, you could now be just going to work or going about your business and get thrown into a military vehicle and driven away. And Miep was terrified for her husband, Jan. Anyone that looked 18 to 45 was eligible to be thrown in and kidnapped and taken away by the Germans. And Jan set her down and is like, I am going to start actively working with this resistance group. And there are safe houses that I might have to stay in. So if I don't come home for a couple of days, don't freak out and think automatically that the Germans have a hold of me. There were 200 men in the social services that had organized themselves and they had lots of excuses to go in and out of different houses.
- [44:21]
Holly Frey
When he told me that he had been working with this group for six.
- [44:25]
Maria Tatar
Months, well, she knew her husband and this, oh, this reminds me so much of Mr. Graham. You know, when you are married, he's not an adrenaline junkie. He's not being frivolous, he's being very brave. But like sometimes they try to spare you, but you know them. And so he kind of sheepishly, okay, I'm gonna start working with this organization. There's all these, quote, illegal people that, you know, they're just people and they need my help and blah, blah, blah. And she, she looked at him for a few minutes and said, jan, how long have you been doing this already? I know you like, thanks for telling me, but I know you've already been doing it.
- [45:04]
Holly Frey
Right?
- [45:05]
Maria Tatar
Right. And he admitted it had been half a year, you know, and even going.
- [45:09]
Holly Frey
Forward, you know, she didn't ask questions. He didn't tell lies. They just survived it.
- [45:17]
Maria Tatar
Food was getting scarcer. The penalties for helping Jews were getting stricter. Every day there was more danger. Mip and Yan had their house searched by officials who knew that Mrs. Stoppelman had left some furniture behind, and they were there to take it. What kind of bureaucracy is this? They were there to take it. We know this isn't your bed. Like, what difference does. Oh, my gosh. What difference does it make whose bed it is? Whose bed are we sleeping in? And Jan was getting a little salty, and Meep's like, look, after the war, I can buy another bed, but chances are, if you pop off at their face, I can't buy another husband.
- [45:58]
Holly Frey
Right?
- [45:58]
Maria Tatar
So just keep it inside of your face, you know? Their hidden lodger was back, the college student. He was in the house when those men came to look. And Meep couldn't believe it that they didn't catch him. And later on, he thought it was a good joke that he had stayed one room ahead of everybody during the search and was hiding behind doors and stuff. I mean, don't give me a heart attack. It's like those cartoons where people are hanging off the balcony and you can see their little hands, but the guy doesn't look down, but he's literally hanging, like, 18ft in the air or whatever. Ugh. Just go wait in the backyard or something. But anyway, the whole thing was so scary. And they never came back for the bed. They just wanted to come in and intimidate. Meat binion, I think. Put their weight around.
- [46:46]
Holly Frey
Yeah, And I think they were also, like, looking to see if anything looked amiss, you know? Yeah, it wasn't. That was just the excuse to get the furniture.
- [46:56]
Maria Tatar
Well, like, stacks of ration cards or an illegal radio or.
- [47:00]
Holly Frey
If it had been at the office and they had seen those chairs, they. Yeah, that would have been it.
- [47:06]
Maria Tatar
The lovely butcher, the man who. I mean, he risked a lot. The lovely butcher who had been supplying 11 people for the price of two this whole time was seized and taken away. One day, Meep went there, and it was his wife serving behind the counter, and she was absolutely terrified and couldn't talk without her hands shaking. He was taken away for helping Jewish friends. Was he taken away for helping Miep? She didn't know. Was he in trouble for her or some other random person? Was the trail going to come back to her? Would they make him tell about Miep? They were not above torturing people. And there's no way to know how much trouble that she's in.
- [48:10]
Holly Frey
My bathroom is full of OSEA products. But the one that seems the most interesting to me, the most important, is osea's Dream Night Serum. You know, wrinkles can happen at any age. I think I got my first wrinkles in my, I don't even know, maybe my 20s. And I've said it before, I love the ones around my eyes and the smile one around my mouth because it means I'm smiling and laughing. But there's some I don't really like.
- [48:36]
Maria Tatar
Like those two on the top of your nose between your eyebrows that mean that you're scowling.
- [48:43]
Holly Frey
Yeah, I'm not a fan of those or the ones from the straws. I don't smoke, but I'm getting ones from drinking from straws. But osea's Dream Night Serum is going to come to the rescue.
- [48:55]
Maria Tatar
So retinol is the gold standard for smooth skin. But retinol often causes irritation and peeling. But the bioretinol skincare in the Dream Night Serum from OSEA is powerful but gentle without the irritation of the classic formula.
- [49:14]
Holly Frey
I love that it works overnight because your skin works hardest to repair itself and regenerate at night. That's when that bioretinol from osea's Dream Night Serum is going to work.
- [49:25]
Maria Tatar
In addition, the lavender scent is a little bit of a bonus.
- [49:30]
Holly Frey
Yeah, lavender is great for helping you sleep. Say goodnight to wrinkles and wake up to visibly firmer, smoother, naturally radiant skin with osea's new Dream Night Serum.
- [49:41]
Maria Tatar
And right now we have a special offer just for our listeners. Get 10% off your first order sitewide with code chicks@oseamalibu.com that's O S E A Malibu.com year Miep turned 34 and around to the start of her 35th year. Outside, the wars were raging. This was the year of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which was a 30 day siege of the Jewish quarter in Warsaw, Poland. Unfortunately, it ended up with 56,000 Jewish casualties. Denmark was officially placed under total Nazi control. There had been a polite fiction, just like they had tried in the Netherlands. Oh, our Aryan brethren. We were all going to get along. No. They started to crack down on the Jewish people. And the people of Denmark began to ship the Jewish population, at great risk over to Sweden. So they were also resisting. And the Nazis began to crack down there. There are battles and fronts all over the world, you know, in at least America, we mostly learn about World War II as it relates to Europe. But in fact, there were vast fronts all over Asia and northern Africa. The world was just in amazing turmoil. And I'm sorry to say that an Allied bombing, it was meant to strike the Fokker aircraft factory, instead destroyed a residential area of Amsterdam. So it further eroded morale and gave sort of credence to the Nazi occupiers. You see what they're capable of. It was a giant PR nightmare for the Allies. In the Netherlands itself, deep raids, door to door raids called razias, were emptying the country of the Jewish population. Miep and Jan lived in the traditionally Jewish area of Amsterdam. The soundtrack of their nights were angry voices, knocks on doors and wailing and crying. It just broke their hearts. It was going on all around them. One day they got a knock at their own door and they opened it to great trepidation. It was their upstairs neighbor, a Jewish lady who had a cat in her arms and said, can you take my cat to the shelter or could. You didn't finish the sentence. And Miep looked her straight in the eye and said, I will look after your cat myself until you come back. That's all she could do just to reassure the lady that someone was going to take care of her beloved animal. A lot was said in that little sentence. I'm wondering if after a while, I mean, you know how I'm just from watching Grey's Anatomy. I don't know anything more about ER doctors than that, but, like, you know how ER doctors have to kind of develop a little bit of a shell. You're still a person, you know, they're still a person, but you kind of can't break down all the time. I believe that Miep and Jan and a lot of other Dutch people were having to start gathering a shell about them just for their own mental health, you know?
- [53:01]
Holly Frey
Right. Well, there's so much going on. I mean, there's just so much chaos around them. They need to focus on the things that they can control, even though everything is worthy of their efforts.
- [53:13]
Maria Tatar
Right. Well, upstairs and down, up and down the streets, moving vans, municipal moving vans, were emptying the neighborhood of Jewish possessions. New families took up residence in the neighborhood. Non Jews who'd been on a wait list for when something opened up. Oh, look, a benefit to you. We have an apartment for you.
- [53:32]
Holly Frey
Right.
- [53:33]
Maria Tatar
This is just the horrible way that your basic needs are getting met, you know?
- [53:38]
Holly Frey
Yeah.
- [53:39]
Maria Tatar
As a tiny light in the growing darkness, mutual surprises were brewing. Anne, up in the secret annex, had been hoarding her own sugar and other ingredients in a secret way and surprised Meep with a Christmas cake. Simultaneously. Meep had been doing the same thing and surprised the upstairs hiders with a New Year's cake on which she wrote Peace. In 1944, Jan's connection for the ration cards was caught. Now, that network was pretty good about compartmentalizing, so he wasn't in immediate danger. But what this did mean is they're now facing a numerical difficulty. He managed to scrape only five ration cards to replace the eight they'd already been using. So you got a percentage of food, you know that was going to go down. There's nothing to be done about that. There were shortages outside in the stores. Food was often half spoiled, but that's what there was. And everyone all over the Netherlands was sick from food poisoning most of the time. To some degree, it was like a low level nausea that began to take over. Even the black market had really dried up. Anyone who'd had extra was having to use it. Also, the dangers were just too great of being swept up like our old, old friend the butcher, you know, it's just not worth the trouble to get your wares and bring them into town anymore. And so people did it.
- [55:06]
Holly Frey
There was a slight turn in optimism in the middle of 1944, on June 6th. At this point, the residents had been in the attic for about 23 months. But that is when there was the Allied invasion in Normandy, France. D day, we know it as the US and Canada and the UK and other Allied troops had stormed the beaches of Nazi occupied France. And excitement filled the air in the stuffy annex as they heard it on the radio. Otto had a map in the annex and he was tracking the movement with pins of the Allied advancements. They could see it visually what was happening out in the world at this point. They're like, oh, the Allies are all coming. It's just a matter of time before we're all liberated.
- [55:54]
Maria Tatar
There were about 160,000 troops during the first assault. By the end of June, there had been 875,000 troops that had passed through those beachheads. There was a genuine fighting force on the continent now. Hope spring's eternal sprang. Sprot, you know, if brought is good enough for bring, I say Sprott is good enough for spring. So hope, hope Sprott eternal.
- [56:20]
Holly Frey
There you go.
- [56:20]
Maria Tatar
You know, surely now, now the hard times would be coming to an end. Everyone listened to American General Eisenhower on the radio that night. His speech in part went as follows. People of Western Europe. A landing was made this morning on the coast of France by troops of the Allied Expeditionary Force. This landing is part of the concerted United nations plan for the liberation of Europe, made in conjunction with our great Russian allies. I have this message for all of you. Although the initial assault may not have been made in your own country, the hour of your liberation is approaching. All patriots, men and women, young and old, have a part to play in the achievement of final victory. Continue your passive resistance, but do not needlessly endanger your lives until I give you the signal to rise and strike the enemy. The day will come when I shall need your united strength. Until that day, I call on you for the hard task of discipline and restraint. Be patient. Prepare. Great battles lie ahead. I call upon all who love freedom to stand with us. Keep your faith staunch. Our arms are resolute. Together we shall achieve victory. Inspirational. There was certainly room for a little.
- [57:39]
Holly Frey
Bit of hope and optimism sprang on Ann's 15th birthday. Just a few days before that. One of the salesmen for the Opecta company had come in with a crate of fresh strawberries, and Miep was able to bring them upstairs. And they had a party, not just eating the strawberries, but making them and making, oh, hey, jam. We've got all the things to make jam. I mean, what a treat that must have been to have all this fruit that they hadn't seen in a long time, and just to be able to eat so much of it, you just started to feel queasy on it. That must have been such a different experience.
- [58:24]
Maria Tatar
Yeah, nothing ever tasted as sweet as that fruit that was seasoned by Hope, you know.
- [58:30]
Holly Frey
Oh, that was beautiful.
- [58:32]
Maria Tatar
I just made that. That was really good. Also, the office ladies had a brilliant idea. You know, surely that diary was probably getting full by now. Every time they went up there, Ann is writing away upstairs, and she was probably running out of paper. And so they would make her books and, you know, stacks of spare paper from ledgers in the office, which she greatly, greatly appreciated. So both of those gifts of hers were extremely thoughtful.
- [58:59]
Holly Frey
She had filled that first diary that she had, that famous plaid covered one. Within the first year it was filled up, and she was getting just like scraps of paper that Meep could give her. So getting like a put together notebook. What a treat to have all those pages that you get to fill up.
- [59:18]
Maria Tatar
I used to love hanging out in stationery stores as a little kid. You know, you'd get a stinky gel pen that smelled like, I don't know, strawberries or something, and your mom would get You a big new notebook. And it was just so full of potential.
- [59:31]
Holly Frey
Yeah, I know. It's like the first day of school. Those fresh pencils. This is about the time that Ann had heard an interview on the radio that talked about how history wasn't going to be able to be written by official documentation alone, that future historians and future societies were going to need other types of primary source materials. Diaries and letters and sermons, articles in newsletters. Anything that wasn't just from the government and most likely had a governmental spin on it. That's when Ann got the idea that her diary. She was just practicing writing and loving writing for the joy of writing. She began to think, oh, this what I'm compiling here might be important after the war. Maybe I should start to rewrite it. And it's about now that she does. She's taking those new notebook that she's gotten and she's starting to rewrite her diary from the beginning. That's like a writer thing. I'm, like, getting chills. I mean, that's a writer thing. You write your. And when you're a kid, the teachers, they say, you know, you write a sloppy copy. You know, your first draft, it's a sloppy copy. You just get the stuff on paper, and then the real writing comes and the rewrites and the edits. And that's what she was doing at this point.
- [60:50]
Maria Tatar
Nice. What would they have done if it hadn't rhymed, though? I don't know.
- [60:53]
Holly Frey
I don't know.
- [60:54]
Maria Tatar
Outside, there was a soundtrack that even the people in the secret annex had no trouble hearing. Just like had happened years ago when the war had first started. And they watched and heard all of the bombers traveling from Germany over to perpetrate the blitz on the poor old city of London. Now they were seeing them go the other direction. Assaults of Hamburg, Stuttgart, even Berlin. Radio Orange had good news. For the people of the Netherlands, it was just a matter of time now, and they're seeing the airplanes fly overhead. But for the hiders in the secret annex, time had just run out.
- [61:36]
Holly Frey
On August 4, 1944, Miep and Bep and Mr. Kleiman were in the office working. It was around noon, and suddenly a man just appeared in the doorway. And he pointed a gun at them all and he said, don't move.
- [61:53]
Maria Tatar
He went into the back office to confront, quote, the boss, Mr. Crawler. And Mr. Kleemann said to Miep, I think the day we've dreaded has come.
- [62:03]
Holly Frey
While he was stepped away into the other office, Miep frantically collected any ration cards or cash that she could find really quickly every day. Jan came to have lunch with Miep at the office and he just happened to show up. At that point, she saw him coming and took her little stash that she had collected, ran to him and just said, go away.
- [62:26]
Maria Tatar
She said, it's wrong here.
- [62:28]
Holly Frey
It's wrong here. Yes.
- [62:30]
Maria Tatar
And he's experienced and he just like, poof, vaporized. He knows. He knows very well what that means. He got the heck out of there. And Mr. Kleeman gave his wallet to Bep. Go to this drugstore. This is a friend of mine. Call my wife, give her my wallet. Disappear. Go now. And be left with the wallet. Now. Interesting that this comes up later when people were investigating this raid. Like Bep encountered no resistance. There was nobody outside to stop her. There'd been no cordon, there were no backups. Bep just left with the wallet, you know, after the man had appeared and gone back to the back office. Anyway, more on that later. But. So bep's gone. And Mr. Kleeman told Miep to go too, but she said she couldn't. I just can't physically, mentally, probably both. Another man came and got ready to take Mr. Kleemon to the back office, and Miep was frozen in her seat. The man turned to Mr. Kleemann and said, turn the keys over to the young lady. And Mr. Kleemon whispered to Miep, stay out of this. Everything here is in your hands. Okay? So there's a chance they think that the raiders thought she'd been an innocent dupe, you know, about what was happening. So they're going to seize that. Like he just told Mr. Kleeman to turn the keys over to her. The blonde blue eyed lady sitting at the desk.
- [63:47]
Holly Frey
Right. She must have joined the Nazi girls club. Right.
- [63:51]
Maria Tatar
So they're going to try to ride that. It's like a slim hope, but they're going to try that. And the official that wasn't involved in interrogating the two men sat down and began talking on the phone, calling for cars and backup.
- [64:03]
Holly Frey
While that man was talking on the phone, obviously heard something on the other end that made him turn his attention to Meep. Meep, who is the holder of the keys.
- [64:13]
C
Who.
- [64:13]
Holly Frey
Meep, who might have been able to just get out and been innocent in the whole thing. Something he said made him turn his attention to her and ask for her identification. She recognized his accent and she said to him back in German, you're Viennese? I'm from Vienna too. And got out her ID to show him and verify that she was indeed from Vienna.
- [64:39]
Maria Tatar
There it was, her passport with the swastika on it.
- [64:43]
Holly Frey
It didn't work as a get out of jail free card because the man got very angry at her. He started yelling at her and calling her a traitor and just cussing at her. And she just stood still, not reacting visibly as much as possible.
- [65:00]
Maria Tatar
It seemed like he had trouble reconciling this clearly Aryan Austrian person with someone who would help a Jewish person. It was like, weirdly problematic for him. It broke his head. Almost as if he decided that this tiny lady person was just a mug after all, because that can't exist together, right? You know, she's a mug for the men around her who were clearly criminals. But then he just. He could not reconcile her behavior with what she looked like in her passport.
- [65:30]
Holly Frey
He tried really hard because after yelling at her, he told her she had to stay still and quote, if you run away, we take your husband. So that made me wonder if the person on the phone had said something about Yan. And what he did then was just shut her in an office. So she just had to sit there and listen to what was going on around her.
- [65:54]
Maria Tatar
And he said, God help you if you run away. But out of sympathy, I'm allowing you to stay. Yikes. Yikes. And then Meep heard footsteps outside the door along the hall. The occupants of the secret annex were being taken away. It was only two and a half hours after the man had first come in and pointed a gun at the office workers, and the world had completely changed.
- [66:35]
Holly Frey
Last week, my daughter came over and we were sitting in my bed watching Doctor who, and she messed with my pillows. And that night I went to sleep. And now I have regular cotton pillowcases. But the ones I sleep on are the Blissey silk pillowcases. Well, she had messed up my bed and the cotton ones were on top. And my hair in the morning made me realize the power of the Blissey silk pillowcase. It was all over the place. I can't even get over how effective it is to help keep my curly hair looking decent the next day.
- [67:12]
Maria Tatar
It eliminates frizz and it protects. Well, I don't have curly hair. I have. I'd call it mermaid hair.
- [67:19]
Holly Frey
Yes, you do.
- [67:20]
Maria Tatar
And it has a mind of its own. And Blissey is somewhat of a lion tamer.
- [67:25]
Holly Frey
They are silk. They're 100% mulberry silk. Not satin. No, synthetics. And not only are they good for our hair, they're good for our skin too. They're dermatologists tested and recommended for your.
- [67:39]
Maria Tatar
Skin, but silk fibers are naturally hydrating.
- [67:42]
Holly Frey
And they're always cool. It's like the cool side of the pillowcase is always on the top.
- [67:47]
Maria Tatar
And you're going to think, oh, silk. It's going to be one of those dramatic scenarios where I have to hand wash it and hang it in the sunlight of a morning do and this and that. No, fling it into your washing machine. Blissy pillowcases can handle it. Thank goodness, because some of the antique china and stuff I buy, I'm like, here's your gauntlet. Put it in the dishwasher. Good luck to you if you make it. You can live here.
- [68:13]
Holly Frey
That's right.
- [68:14]
Maria Tatar
And Blissy pillowcases survived survival of the fittest pillowcases.
- [68:19]
Holly Frey
That's awesome.
- [68:21]
Maria Tatar
Because you're listeners. Blissey is offering 60 nights risk free, plus an additional 30% off when you shop at blissi.com historychicks that's B L I S S-Y.com historychicks and use code historychicks to get an additional 30% off.
- [68:38]
Holly Frey
Your skin and your hair will thank you.
- [69:00]
Maria Tatar
The Nazis had snatched the keys back from Meep, no longer the most trustworthy in the office, and had given them to that warehouseman that no one in the annex had trusted. And after the Nazis left, the warehousemen and everyone that worked downstairs came up to see what had been happening. Totally natural behavior. They wanted to talk, and I didn't know about any of this. And I almost wonder if they thought she was also innocent. The way that she describes them talking to her, it's like, did you know that they were doing that kind of thing? It was like, wow. Like she was not in on it. So not only did the Nazi government sort of give her a pass in the office, she also sort of had a little pass, which just goes to.
- [69:46]
Holly Frey
Say how well she was putting up the walls to act as if everything was just the same as always.
- [69:55]
Maria Tatar
Wow, that warehouseman. Just to close his little story down, his name, his real name is Wim von Marin, although in the book he's Fritz van Mato. He actually became suspect number one for who had betrayed the Franks. But nothing substantial has ever been proved against him. Otto Frank, even most of the time believed it had been him. But Meep said no, because she was the only one that knew he also had a son in hiding, and he wouldn't do that to someone else. So it's very tangled. Like he was also keeping a secret and had entrusted it only to Meep. And it Took a lot for her to even reveal that. And she only did it to exonerate him, you know, decades after the fact. Man, if you ever want anyone to keep a secret, you know, she's the one.
- [70:41]
Holly Frey
No kidding. Would I be that good at keeping a secret like that? I don't know.
- [70:45]
Maria Tatar
Well, when Jan left, he was understandably freaked out about what was going to go down in the office. He didn't know what to do. He was walking around, walking around and he quick walked, but didn't run to the office of Mr. Kliemont's brother and told him what was going on. And together they decided that they were going to go watch the OPEC to office. From across the street, a transport van pulled up and he saw their friends, the upstairs party and Misters Kleemann and Kugler get in the van and drove away. And he was devastated to realize that among all the people, he could not determine if Miep was among them. But he didn't feel like he could go in because he didn't know how many Nazis there had been. Was there someone still in there? Would he do more damage by going in? And so he was faced with many hours of stress and pressure, not knowing what had happened to his wife.
- [71:40]
Holly Frey
Bep had also stayed away and eventually came back and met up with Jan. And they decided it had been long enough, there hadn't been any other activity going on. They were going to go back in. And they went back in and they found Meep and she was just sitting there just stunned. And they said, it's 5:00. And she just. It just blew her mind. She didn't realize how much time had passed since the lunchtime hour to now, everything that had happened. They decided that they should go upstairs to the apartment. They knew that the Nazis were going to come back and collect everything just like they had been doing in houses all over the city. So they went up to see if they could find anything. And Meep walked in and it was just carnage and pillage. Drawers were emptied out, beds were stripped and thrown on the floor. Clothes were everywhere. It was a mess. But Meep saw something and she walked over and was able to collect all those papers of Anne's, her diary, all those scrap pieces of paper that she had given Anne, all those little notebooks that her and Bep had put together for Anne were just strewn all over the floor. She collected them all up and she brought them back downstairs and she put them in a drawer in her desk and thought, I am going to save these for Anne. When she gets back, two things.
- [73:08]
Maria Tatar
She decided it would be suspicious if she locked her bottom drawer. So she didn't lock the drawer that had all the diary and all the papers in it. And out of respect for Anne's privacy, she didn't read them. Which was lucky for us, because later in her life, Miep, after she read the diary, said, I'm glad I didn't read them then, because there was such incriminating evidence, I would have had to burn them.
- [73:35]
Holly Frey
You know, all I'm thinking of is all those letters that we, you know, that we always talk about. They burn their letters after they died. They burned their letters after they died. Well, this was one thing that didn't get burned. So what was in all those letters that got burned? Wow.
- [73:49]
Maria Tatar
I know. We talked about that when we talked about Jane Austen, how Cassandra burnt all her letters. Right?
- [73:54]
Holly Frey
Yeah.
- [73:54]
Maria Tatar
I don't think it was just.
- [73:55]
Holly Frey
I mean, it's been several subjects. They burned their letters, and we.
- [73:59]
Maria Tatar
Queen Victoria and the later people expurgating her saucy parts of her diary to keep the image alive that we know her as. But, like, people don't end up with that many children for no reason. The next day dawned, and Miep realized, although she knew it was on her and Mr. Kleeman had made it specific, everything here is for you to preserve. And she knew she had to run the company. Some outside salesmen came by and had to be told the whole story that they had just heard in the warehouse. What happened. Now, keep in mind, the outside salesman had been informed by the warehouse that thought Meep wasn't in on it. So one of the outside salesmen, who was a member of the Dutch Nazi Party, wore the pin proudly and everything had an idea for her. He said, you know what you should do? They're getting ready to leave. The writing's on the wall, and probably by now they'll just take money. We can have a little whip round in here. We will put our money in. And you take this money. Only you can do it, because you're the boss of here, you know, and they left you. You're innocent. So you should go to the Nazi Party office and offer them money to release the upstairs people. And, you know, you wouldn't think that someone who wore a Nazi Party pin would be someone you'd even listen to. But years before, Otto Frank had actually told Miep, in a prescient move that she remembered, this guy just joined to keep his family safe. He doesn't have those beliefs. When it all comes down this is a man that you could trust if the chips fall in a bad way and you have to rely on him, he's a man that I would ask for help. And so she remembered that conversation, didn't she, from years ago, and decided that she was going to take his advice.
- [75:46]
Holly Frey
I think this was one of the most brave things she did.
- [75:48]
Maria Tatar
Miep made an appointment with the Austrian Nazi. His name is Carl Silberbauer. And when she got there, he was not alone. There were secretaries in the room with him. So she couldn't even ask him what she wanted to ask him. She made that little sign, the money sign, where you rub your fingers together. And he said, I think you should come back tomorrow at 9am till she left, hopeful there was going to be progress. She came back and the secretaries were gone. And he told her, I can't help you. Strict orders have just been issued. I literally can't do anything for you. My hands are tied. I would have tried to help you in days gone by, but now everybody's looking. She said, I don't believe you. And he sat back in his chair and said, go upstairs and see my boss, then. Why don't you? And I can't believe she went.
- [76:37]
Holly Frey
Miep didn't have a choice. So she went upstairs to the office of his boss and walked in. And what she saw was a group of Nazi officers sitting around a radio and listening to the BBC. Outlawed radio. Outlawed even for them. It wasn't just that people on in the city couldn't listen to it. Nobody should be listening to BBC radio. Except this group of Nazi officers was listening to the BBC. And she just looked at them and she said, who's in charge here? And they kind of looked at her like, no, no. And turned her around, physically just turned her around and kind of physically pushed her out the door. They slammed the door, and that was it. She had nowhere else to go, so.
- [77:25]
Maria Tatar
She just had to leave every second. She expected to be stopped, to be screamed at. She passed Mr. I don't know his rank Silver power, and he gave her that I told you so face, you know, wordlessly, like, I. I don't know why you didn't listen to me. Likely upstairs, the officers were wondering if this was it for them too. She had just seen them committing, legally, treason, Right? So. Well, I don't know. I'm glad they were still in shock. But she was able to leave safely. She walked and just really thought she was gonna get hit every second. And she really knew that avenue at least was completely closed. She did see Officer Silberbauer over and over again. He would pop his head in anytime he was passing. I mean, dirty torturer. And just pop his head in menacingly. I'm just checking you're still here. Just checking you haven't run away like randomly on his way by everywhere. It was so gross. Well, she was afraid due to Officer Silberbauer to go upstairs again. That would be like the worst thing for him to find her upstairs, don't you think?
- [78:28]
Holly Frey
Oh yeah, definitely. Now, other people had gone upstairs and there were other pages of Anne's diary that they found and they handed them to her and she just put them away with all the others in the drawer. People knew that she had them and they asked to see them and she said, no, I can't. She said, it's not right. Even though it's the writings of a child, it's her and it's her secret. I'll only return it back to into her hands and her hands alone.
- [78:55]
Maria Tatar
Since at the office there was an unarrested Christian person in charge. And maybe the officer intervened. The moving men didn't touch the office or warehouses, didn't even look at them. Simply went up. I say simply went upstairs, gathered every single one of the Franks and the van Pelses and Dr. Pfeffer's items and Meep watched them all be loaded into a van willy nilly the familiar things she'd been so used to associating with her friends. But it was up to her to go on. Downstairs in the office, they hadn't even touched the sugar, which had an amazing monetary value. People at the bank were told frankly what had happened and they calmly just substituted Meep on the signature card. It's okay, ma'am, don't worry. There was no trouble at the bank. They simply added her name and it was legal for her to sign the paychecks, sign the work orders. From then on, the resistance, though, fired Jan. He was too hot. He was too public and he was fired.
- [80:01]
Holly Frey
Yeah, okay. I don't know, does that sound mean like they fired him? I mean, it was for his own safety as well as all the clients that they had. He called them his clients.
- [80:10]
Maria Tatar
Yeah. No, yeah, it does sound mean to say he was fired, but you know, he was. He was no longer incognito.
- [80:16]
Holly Frey
Right.
- [80:17]
Maria Tatar
So. So he couldn't move about undetected anymore. He was too much in public eye. Well, France and Belgium were liberated. Later that fall, news came that the British had landed in the south of the Netherlands and It was called Crazy Tuesday. The Germans began to flee. Dutch flags came out from closets. But it turned out it was only a rumor. It was no such thing. On the radio, Queen Wilhelmina asked railroad workers to strike. It would be a great aid to the Allies if the Germans could not resupply their soldiers. She did understand that it was a great risk, that the penalty for striking was often death. But thousands of workers left and went into hiding. It did help the Allies. It certainly did bring the German resupply to a halt. But as the month waned on and the British didn't appear and the railroads had been disabled, the Germans came back infuriated, Infuriated. And they said, all right then, if you don't want the trains to run, the trains will not run.
- [81:21]
Holly Frey
So what they were doing was stopping all commerce into the city. Nothing new was coming in. But people in the city still had to feed themselves and still had to take care of what was going on in their families. So they would have to go out farther and farther into the country to find a farmer who was selling carrots or potatoes or milk or eggs. You know, just every day it was a battle to find food. Because nothing was coming in. They had to go out and find it themselves. That's what Meep was doing. She was riding her bike out into the country every day looking for farmers that could sell her supplies, you know, food. It was dangerous. There was blockades and there were curfews that she had to meet. And the farther out you go, the longer it's going to take you to get back. There was one day that she and a friend had ridden their bikes so far out that when they were coming back and they had a flat tire and they couldn't ride their bikes anymore, slowed them down even more. They were rescued by two men who were pushing a cart. They said, you're just going to be stopped. Two women alone being stopped at the next checkpoint is not safe. We're just going to pretend that you're our wives. Put your bikes in the back of our cart. We're going to go through the next checkpoint, and until you're safe, we're going to stay with you.
- [82:38]
Maria Tatar
Nice. So good. And it really saved their bacon. The Germans reduced the rations. The ration cards were now only suitable for 500 calories a day. That's all you were allowed to buy. So the people of the cities of the Netherlands got increasingly desperate. Nothing was coming in, and sausage was often made with ground up nutshells as filler. And no one asked Questions about what exactly that meat was that made up the rest of the sausages. One of their customers, who had been forced by shortages to start buying the ground nutshell Filler said, you know, if you're ever absolutely desperate, come to me and I will help you out. Well, they were. They were that desperate. Meep and her friend rode way, way, way out to a military base. It happened to be her birthday. It was February 15th. And the man couldn't believe it was her birthday. Well, why don't you two ladies just sit down and before you go back, I'll give you a nice meal. They couldn't believe their luck, and they had a festival of rich things. Pork chops, mashed potatoes with gravy, bread and butter, luscious desserts. And then they became deathly ill. The rich food, after years of starvation, made them so, so sick. Meep was so sick, in fact, that she couldn't ride her bike. She couldn't even walk. And the desperate man was like, I. I don't know what to do with you. And he put them in a jail cell, figuring, well, if. If they get found, at least they're in jail. Like, right. They're not out. They're in trouble. And she was sick as a dog in every way all through the whole night. Before dawn, he came in and firmly put her on her bicycle like. Like a bouncer at a club at night. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here type of thing. And gave her a sack of food like he had promised in the beginning, and sent them on their way. And they encountered twice this. I mean, this is like something is looking out for them. Because a stereotype came true today. Twice on their way back, they went through checkpoints with this sack of meat and butter and very valuable contraband. And twice the Germans were looking for weapons and food wasn't on their radar, and they just let them pass. Twice. So that whole stereotype of the Germans, like, oh, they won't find us if they're looking for somebody else, came true for them that night. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it.
- [85:03]
Holly Frey
These are soldiers following orders, and the order was weapons. Yeah.
- [85:06]
Maria Tatar
So they got all that meat through the checkpoints. You know, there was also, though, no fuel, no fuel for cooking, no fuel for heating water or anything. People scavenged anything burnable to try to survive the bitter winter. And sometimes you'd come out and find your stairs had been disassembled in the night because somebody had taken them to.
- [85:27]
Holly Frey
Burn we had talked about this in Audrey Hepburn's episode. It's called the Hunger Winter. The people of the Netherlands were forced to eat the bulbs of the tulips just for something to put in their stomachs. I mean, like you said, there was no coal, no firewood, no electricity. Even their bicycles, you know, once the rubber broke or came apart or whatever, they had like wheels made out of wood on their bikes just to try and keep them going.
- [85:54]
Maria Tatar
At one point, Miep heard of a farmer that had known Jan from back in the day, and he offered them two bottles of milk, but they had to come get it. And so she drove two hours on her bike to go get two bottles of milk. That's how desperate it was. People would eat mud just to assuage their hunger pangs. People were too weak to move. Often you'd find a person who'd starve to death slumped over against a wall. It was desperate, desperate situation. In America, there's a story of Laura Ingalls Wilder's called the Long Winter, in which the supply trains were frozen in the snowbanks and the town was cut off from supplies. And so, you know, there's a big crescendo and there's a couple of heroes, they go get all the wheat to save the town and everyone gets saved from starvation. Well, unfortunately for the cities of the Netherlands, there's no Almanzo Wilder. There's no farmer that has a warehouse full of wheat. No is coming to save them. The news came that the Germans had been defeated just everywhere. And no one could muster any excitement. What did this mean to you? When getting to the next day alive was all you could focus on. That's literally one foot in front of the other. You had no excitement to realize that Queen Wilhelmina had decided it was safe to step back on the Netherlands soil. She was back in the country, but it was more like. And this means to me, right, you know, yeah.
- [87:21]
Holly Frey
At this point it says you're here too. Great. That's one more mouth to feed almost. Yeah. Finally, after the long, hungry, dark winter, on April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler died from a self inflicted gunshot wound. Word didn't come down on the radio until the next day. But what does that mean? Is it over?
- [87:43]
Maria Tatar
The long look forward to day had come all over the world. And all Miep said in her book was the prayer I'd said so many times with my fist in the air had finally come true. But there just didn't seem to be any energy left to care about anything. That wasn't definitive, you know, About a.
- [88:02]
Holly Frey
Week later, Germany completely surrendered on May 7, 1945. And it was that very day that supplies began to be dropped onto the city of Amsterdam.
- [88:16]
Maria Tatar
Planes began to fly low over the city. What was going on? It's frightening. You know, you've been conditioned that that's not good. And these were Allied planes. But, you know, we've seen that before, too, in Amsterdam, haven't we? And so there was a little bit of nervousness until people started to realize, this has got to be the best job ever as an airman. Guess what was coming out of those airplanes. Little cans of fish, bars of chocolate, packages of cookies and real butter, bacon, cheese, dried fruit, sausages. I mean, it's like Railroad Bill in Fried Green Tomatoes. Do you remember that movie where Idgy would board the government train and throw all the supplies out to the poor people along the railroad track? Well, those parcels would continue to rain down on Amsterdam for the entirety of the next week. But Jan didn't really feel like celebrating. Weirdly enough, it was all coming crashing down. How much the country had been through. So many people dead, the suffering, the chaos. And now it was at an end, and he had the luxury to collapse. I get it. I get it. He and me had heightened awareness for years, always having to think strategically and. And it broke them, you know, it did. It broke them. On May 7, the word went out that the Canadians were coming. And it started out small, just four tanks with a few bewildered soldiers that are like, o, what. What have I got myself into? Kind of cresting the bridge into town to great cheers and approbation. But the greater force of the Canadian army arrived the next day. Rank after rank of them. Men shook their hands, ladies kissed their faces. The soldiers distributed cigarettes like they were the kings of the men. You know, hooray, here you go, cigarettes. And you know what else they distributed besides the cigarettes? The security people needed to start really, really believing that the Netherlands were free at last. And this time it was real. The church bells rang. People came out of hiding. There was music, there was dancing in the streets. Everybody dug out their old accordions. She said, that is some cacophony. But no one cared also, and I don't know how she would know this until later. She said everyone began to plant marigolds immediately. And maybe she didn't realize that until they popped up. They don't take that long. And maybe people were just talking about it. But she said, that's one of the. That's one of the things as the church bells were ringing, people were planting marigolds again.
- [90:42]
Holly Frey
Well, it's the time of year to plant marigolds. Those were the flowers that the Nazis had outlawed, the orange flowers that people were planting to show signs of resistance and when wearing in their shirts, the Nazis had outlawed that. But suddenly you could plant marigolds again.
- [90:57]
Maria Tatar
Miep wrote in her book a poignant sentence about the next day. To wake up and go through one whole day without any sense of danger was amazing. Foreign There are periods in your life where you seem to go to a lot of weddings, a lot. Like, who is it today? Like they used to say in Four Weddings and a Funeral. And we are in that second wave where our friends, kids are getting married. I know, you know, there's a lot of shopping for fancy dresses and everyone's getting so creative and fancy. And so you kind of, you want to match the environment. And the thing that always makes you dread and regret is often the shapewear you wear to give your dress a nice fit.
- [92:06]
Holly Frey
Honeylove is kind of my solution for that. It's a new standard in shapewear. They have targeted compression in their super power shorts. It helps smooth and sculpt your body. It doesn't change your shape, it just enhances it and kind of polishes it up.
- [92:24]
Maria Tatar
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- [93:13]
Holly Frey
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- [93:31]
Maria Tatar
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Holly Frey
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- [93:45]
Maria Tatar
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- [93:52]
Holly Frey
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- [94:15]
Maria Tatar
In an echo of the past, the international community looked at the children of the Netherlands and realized they had a humanitarian issue on their hands. And the children of Holland were sent to England to regain their health. Like it, It's. We've learned nothing, you know, but at least they helped the least of their little tiny brethren.
- [94:37]
Holly Frey
Yeah, well, that's this full circle in Miep's story because that's how she started off. The prisoners that had been in the concentration camps were. They were liberated, they were released, and they began their long treks back home, back into Amsterdam. Jan, who was still a social worker, was assigned to the Central Station, the main railway station in Amsterdam. And his job was to process and give supplies to returning Dutch people, people that were coming home. And every day, he kept an eye out for the Franks, for the Van pels, and for Dr. Pfeffer.
- [95:17]
Maria Tatar
Jan asked every day, he asked everyone he had a chance to encounter. Have you heard of the Franks? Do you know where Otto is? Have you heard of the Van Pals? Like, just trying to activate the network. Anyone who's heard of them, even hearsay, would have been a relief. But no one had.
- [95:36]
Holly Frey
About a month after the liberation of Amsterdam on June 3, Otto Frank, who had been sent to Auschwitz, appeared outside of Jan and Miep's door. Just knocked. Hello. Otto knew that Edith, his wife, was dead, but he wasn't able to find out anything yet about his daughters, Margot and Ann. And they were all, at this point, desperate for information. Miep and Jan welcomed Otto into their home. They said, you can stay here for as long as you like. Just let's get your strength back.
- [96:10]
Maria Tatar
Mr. Frank came back to work, and he was always following up with every possible lead in regard to his daughters, sending out inquiry letters and activating his network. And one day, Amiep and Otto Frank were sitting companionably in the office, going through mail, when all of a sudden, Mr. Frank went Absolutely silent. He had opened the letter that told him his daughters were dead. Neither Margot nor Ann had made it out of the war. He disappeared into his office, and Miepe decided the time had come to empty her bottom drawer.
- [96:45]
Holly Frey
Dee still had not ever read anything that Ann had written, but she collected all the papers up and went into Mr. Frank's office and said, here is your daughter Anne's legacy to you. And she just left him alone with all of Anne's words together.
- [97:02]
Maria Tatar
Jan Miep and Mr. Frank moved to a new apartment and they also moved together again. So they're a team now. They're staying together. Some of the Frank's furniture had survived unseized, trusted to friends all across Amsterdam. And it came to live with them, too, particularly a grandfather clock and a little secretary at which they wrote their correspondence.
- [97:26]
Holly Frey
I just think about that. That is furniture, antiques that had been in the family that they had brought with them from Germany to Amsterdam, and it had survived the war.
- [97:37]
Maria Tatar
Gradually, the news began to come in. We'll just give you kind of the quick rundown of what had happened to everyone. Dr. Pfeffer was dead. Otto Frank had personally seen Mr. Van Pels in the line to go be gassed. Mr. Van Pels is gone. Mrs. Van Pels died in Theresienstadt camp. Peter died at Mauthausen on the day of its liberation. Mr. Kleeman and Mr. Coogler, taken that day, the same day as the Franks, were sent to Camp Amesfort, which is a notorious place. They used to send Dutch and Belgian citizens who had violated the law, I'm sorry to say. And there was a concentration camp called Westerbork. That was cruel. Well, this Camp Amesfoort was considered to be hell to Westerbork's heaven, if that gives you a little glimpse of how horrible of a place that was. Mr. Kleemann was released due to his poor health. He had had ulcers brought on by stress, and they let him go. He was more trouble than he was worth. I don't know. I don't know why they let some people go and not others. Mr. Kugler, they kept. And he ended up in a work camp for a number of months. And he escaped because they set the prisoners to marching. Where are we marching? He said, to Germany. And he thought, I cannot. I can't do this. I'm going to be in the middle of Nazi Germany and I'm never going to get home from there. And as if an angel had appeared from above, along came some Allied planes that began to strafe the prisoners, which I'm not a fan of. And the Nazis are like, get down. Get down. He hid in a cornfield and creeped along. And when the Nazis called for everyone to get back in line, he simply did not do it. And they didn't count and they didn't catch him. And he got away. And it took him a number of days to get back to his house. And his wife, who, in fact, this whole time had been safe at home, as she was a Christian lady and nobody was looking for her, was very pleased to see him. And together they made another little hidey hole near his house that he never had to use. He had taken so long to get home that he made it just in time for the liberation. How do you move on from this period of your life? You know, there's a strong feeling of hatred, for sure. Miep even wrote she felt no stirring of forgiveness. And the lives of so many good people had been ruined by greed and ignorance and violence, and it was all for naught. Well, Otto Frank was taking comfort in copying Anne's pages for his mama, who lived in Switzerland. And he kept marveling about how amazing it was and kept urging Miep to read it. And she just I can't. I can't. I can't read it. I appreciate that. I'm so glad you have that, but I've got to hold back. I am so sorry.
- [100:25]
Holly Frey
And he had friends who were aware of the diary that kept asking him for excerpts, like, could you read us something from it? They were fascinated by it. So he decided to get to work on editing Anne's work and making it readable for anyone.
- [100:42]
Maria Tatar
At first he was so reluctant. These were my daughter's private thoughts. But they convinced him that this was actually a historical document that he had in his hands. And he had a responsibility, frankly, to get it out into the world.
- [100:55]
Holly Frey
Right. In 1947, about two years after the end of the war, Anne's diary was first published. Otto had put it all together, edited it down quite a bit, taken out a lot. It was called Het Akterhus, literally the Secret Annex, which was the name that Anne had given to the hiding place. She called it the Secret Annex. The first edition was just 3,000 copies, but months later, it was followed by a second edition of about 6,000 copies and a third only a few months later, of 10,000.
- [101:32]
Maria Tatar
The book began to be translated and distributed abroad and touched its readers to the core. A series, a stream, really, of letters from all over the world, came to Miep's door. After a number of years, Miep finally agreed to read the diary only if she could be totally alone. She expected that she was going to fall apart. Instead, it was almost cathartic. She wrote, the emptiness in my heart has eased at last. Anne had written in her diary on January 28, 1944. Our own helpers who have managed to pull us through so far and will hopefully bring us safely to shore. Never have they uttered a single word about the burden we must be. Never have they complained that were too much trouble. They come upstairs every day and talk to the men about business or politics, to the women about food, and to the children about books and newspapers. They put on their most cheerful expressions, bring flowers and gifts for birthdays and holidays, are always ready to do what they can. That's something we should never forget. While others might display their heroism in battle or against the Germans, our helpers prove theirs every day by their courage, their good spirits and affection. It really healed something in Maeve's heart.
- [102:49]
Holly Frey
She was so proud of what Anne had done. She said that Anne's voice would never be lost. She said, I read the whole diary without stopping from the first word. I heard Anne's voice come back to speak to me from where she had gone. I lost track of time. Anne's voice tumbled out of the book, so full of life, moods, curiosity, feelings. She was no longer gone and destroyed. She was alive again in my mind.
- [103:17]
Maria Tatar
That year, there was a miracle. Jolin and Miep had not wanted to bring a child into the world. The world at war, the world that was so full of mistrust and violence. And her 30s had passed, but at 40, she gave birth to their son Paul in the summer of 1950.
- [103:36]
Holly Frey
She had stopped working a couple years before. She was a homemaker now. She had to take care of Jan and she had to take care of Otto Frank and help him, you know, with his new real job of answering correspondence from all over the world from people who were reading the diary. Two years after Paul was born, Otto Frank moved to Switzerland to be near his mom. And a year later, he remarried a woman named Fritzi. How they met, they both had two different stories, which I thought was really cute. They had an Amsterdam wedding, and Miep and Jan and Johan Kleiman were there with them, just like they had been there for Jan and Miep.
- [104:19]
Maria Tatar
His second wife was also a survivor who had lost close family, her entire first family, to the camps. And they had a lot in common. And after seven years, it was time. It was time for him to move away and start his new life. It was a hard goodbye. It was a kind of a last closing of the door on that relationship, I think. Although they did go back to visit him in Switzerland. They did?
- [104:44]
Holly Frey
Yes. I love that Miep and Jan would go to Switzerland and visit with them, bring Paul so that Paul could get to know Mr. Frank. You know, their family.
- [104:55]
Maria Tatar
As Anne's book continued to grow in popularity, a stage adaptation was written and produced. And Mip and Yan Bep, Mr. Kleeman and their spouses all went to the premiere. So surreal. This is a play that would later go on to win the Pulitzer Prize. Even more. When the first movie adaptation came out, the year Miep turned 50, the new queen, Queen Juliana, daughter of Queen Wilhelmina, was also in the theater for that one. That's how big of a deal this movie was. But not and never Mr. Otto Frank. As far as Miep knew, Mr. Frank never saw either the play or the movie.
- [105:37]
Holly Frey
For MIEP and Jan, May 4th is the Dutch day of mourning. And they never leave their house on that or August 4th, the anniversary of the arrest, up in the annex. They just stayed home and were just quiet and somber all day. In the 1950s, there were groups that were sympathetic to the Nazis that began to claim that the diary was fake. So Otto sued them and he won. People that were involved were still alive. It was only a few years after the war, so they could give testimony, including the Nazi officers who had arrested the family. I mean, the war is barely over and people are saying that the diary was fake. It started, you know, right away.
- [106:22]
Maria Tatar
I'm going to add this because when the concentration camps were found and liberated, I, I, this is, I didn't write this down, and I don't have any names, but some officer who had a camera was told to take as many pictures as possible because as fast as they could, these camps were going to be erased. People were going to say they didn't exist. There needed to be a wide body of photographic evidence on the spot. And sure enough, concentration camp Holocaust deniers began almost immediately to say that that had never happened and it was all made up. Even though it hurt and even though she was a very shy, shy person. Miep spoke when requested to, at schools or other groups about the Franks and her experiences during the war. She and Jan gave lectures about the importance of spotting early and resisting rising fascism.
- [107:17]
Holly Frey
Long silence. In 1960, the building that held the Opekta offices, as well as the secret annex, was opened as a museum. Per Otto's wishes. The apartment was left empty, just as it had been after the Nazis had cleared it out. There have been some changes over time. You can still go into the annex. More than a million people visit every year. I'm going on the. The Dutch day of mourning just worked out, man. I know. I was writing my notes. I was like, wait, that's the day I'm going, how did that happen? Yeah. There are two organizations who control all of the information about the Frank family. The Anne Frank foundation, which is who has set up the museum in Amsterdam, and the Anne Frank Font, which was begun by Otto Frank and is controlled by Frank family. They actually own, they have the copyrights, they have control over any documentation about the Frank family. They also have a museum in Frankfurt that was begun by Otto and is continued by Frank family relations to this day.
- [108:30]
Maria Tatar
When Miep was 63, Israel's national Holocaust remembrance and preservation organization called Yad Vashem declared that Yan and Meep geese were, quote, righteous among the nations, unquot, for their courage and sacrifices during the war on behalf of their Jewish neighbors. One by one, the eyewitnesses to the events in the secret annex were disappearing. Otto Frank died in 1980, Mr. Coogler in 1981. Bep died very young. In 1983, Miep was convinced to write her memoirs. Jan and Miep worked with a writer named Alison Leslie Gold to tell a side of the Anne Frank story that had not been told before. What we had was the story from Anne Frank's perspective. And this rounded out what was happening out in the wider world. Not just downstairs, but out and about. Anne was carefully sheltered from a lot of what was going on outside. And so it gave more of a full picture of events. This book was hailed as a masterpiece and became a bestseller. And the year after its publication, a movie was produced called the Attic, starring Mary Steenburgen as Meep. I, I saw it.
- [109:52]
Holly Frey
You can, I think you can pay four bucks for it on Prime.
- [109:55]
Maria Tatar
You can also see it in pieces on YouTube if you're.
- [109:58]
Holly Frey
If you don't want to forecast your intelligent.
- [110:01]
Maria Tatar
No, but I just, I'm like, I, I don't know, it's very strange. They always cast Queen Catherine in the Tudors as a dark haired person when she had red hair. I don't know, it doesn't really make any difference, I guess, what color the hair was, but it was kind of a big deal that she looked very Aryan. Mary Steenburgen does not. Not, no. But it's very surreal to watch because, you know, Miep was alive when Mary Steenburgen was preparing for her part. And so a lot of times on the press tour, you can actually see tons of Mary Steenburgen and Meep combo interviews. It's very surreal.
- [110:35]
Holly Frey
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [110:37]
Maria Tatar
One thing that made me feel satisfied was that during the filming of this movie, stores refused to let the Nazi flag be draped on their premises 50 years after the events. They were like, can't. There's national trauma. We're not having it. No. Sorry if it ruins your movie, but you're not hanging out here. And a lot had to be added in post. Miep was very proud of that. Actually. The actress that played Ann looked and sounded so much like Ann, evidently, that it broke Miep's heart.
- [111:08]
Holly Frey
Yeah, she was good. Jan passed away in 1993 at the age of 88. At that point, Miep was only 84. She tried to move into senior housing, but was denied because she was so healthy. Aw, I know. So instead she bought a three room apartment with a garden near Paul and his family and lived there for most of the rest of her life. In 1995, a documentary based on Miep's memoir was released, and the next year it won an Oscar for best documentary.
- [111:42]
Maria Tatar
When she was 87, Miep was knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Queen Wilhelmina's granddaughter, the third queen in a row, as a matter of fact. Queen Beatrix is still alive as of this recording, by the way. She had abdicated in favor of her eldest son. Notably, he has three daughters and no sons. So the next monarch of the Netherlands will be another Queen.
- [112:06]
Holly Frey
Nice. In 2009, at the age of 100, Miep, who had still been speaking around the world, she'd still been answering mail that was sent to her about her book and about Anne's book. She had really taken over all that after Otto passed away. She had become kind of the family spokesperson. But she took a fall that year and went into a nursing home. And it was there that she died on January 11, 2010, just a month before her 101st birthday.
- [112:39]
Maria Tatar
Meep geese was cremated, as was Jan. And all that you can find are remains given to friends or family. So there's a private interment. I don't know. I don't know. Nobody knows where their remains are, which.
- [112:54]
Holly Frey
I think they would have appreciated. Right, because as soon as, you know, they kind of went. It took themselves out of the spotlight, you know, after Anne's book was published.
- [113:04]
Maria Tatar
Once upon a time, Anne Frank wrote in her diary, I want to go on living even after my death. And Meepkes, though she couldn't save Anne Frank's life, did cause that dream of Anne's to finally come true. And let me tell you, the Diary of Anne Frank is a book that is commonly banned from schools and removed from libraries, along with, ironically, Fahrenheit 451 about burning books and erasing History. And now, as usual, it's time for media. And man, there's a lot. There will be so many, in fact, that if you don't get to a pen to write something down, all these links will be on our website@thehistorychicks.com so let's start as usual with books. And I'm here to tell you you might want to start with all of the books we recommended on the Anne Frank podcast. For a little background on what was going on inside the Secret Annex, I.
- [114:01]
Holly Frey
Would strongly recommend you get your hands on Anne Frank Remembered the Story of the Woman who Helped Hide the Frank Family by Miep Geese and Allison Leslie Gold.
- [114:10]
Maria Tatar
I think I have the most recent edition. There's a couple of editions and this new one has an afterward. So the original book dates back to 1987, but the most recent edition is from 2009 and has additional material in it. So I would recommend getting the new one.
- [114:28]
Holly Frey
Another of the helpers, Bep, had a biography written about her. She did not write it. It's called the Last Secrets of Anne Frank. The Untold Story of the Silent Protector by Hupp Van Wink Voskill and Jerome van de Brun. And Joep is the son of Bep, and it was written in 2015. It's the perspective from her life. How it came to being published was so cool because he was talking about his mother and this teenage boy became fascinated with the story from Bep's point of view that he just pitched the book to the son and said, you need to write this. So he is credited as the second author. He was only 15, 15 at the time. That's how much the story is still intriguing people.
- [115:17]
Maria Tatar
There are a couple of books that are meep adjacent. Carol Ann Lee wrote a book called the Hidden Life of Otto Frank. And then Nina Siegel wrote a book called the diary World War II in the Netherlands as written by the people who lived through it. And then we would be remiss if we did not recommend the Hiding Place by Corey Ten Boom, another set of helpers who helped hundreds of Jewish people run through their official constructed hiding place in their house. In fact, when the Ten Boom family was arrested, the hiding place was so well concealed that the raiders never found it. And the six people that were still hiding inside made it to safety. So you should read that book too. Of course.
- [116:06]
Holly Frey
Get your hands on any version of Anne's diary. There's three of them out there. Okay, so there's the original edition. There is the critical edition. Then there is the definitive edition.
- [116:18]
Maria Tatar
Okay.
- [116:18]
Holly Frey
Yeah. And that last one actually uses their real names and it adds some omitted details. But there's also a graphic novel based on the definitive version, and that graphic.
- [116:31]
Maria Tatar
Novel is the one that is currently being banned in schools. The most recent case I saw was August of 2024, but I didn't really dig into the current year, so that's. That one's already being attacked. Just really quick, before I get back to a cold case book, I wanted to recommend also Three Ordinary Girls, the remarkable story of three Dutch teenagers who became spies, saboteurs, Nazi assassins, and World War II heroes. Now, I'm not saying we won't cover these ladies at some future date, but they are MEEP adjacent. And while the war in the Netherlands is fresh in your minds, I think you would get an extra bit of a boost reading this. It's the Overstraken sisters and their friend Hannah Schaft were the people involved. So you might want to pick that one up too. I recommend it.
- [117:22]
Holly Frey
There's a book that came out in 2022 called the betrayal of Anne Frank, A Cold Case Investigation by Rosemary Sullivan. And it's based on the work of a team of investigators. There were 30 people on this team, plus 20 consultants who took six years to investigate this. There had been investigations about who the betrayer was since two years after the war ended. Investigation after investigation, names were coming up. At one point, MEEP was listed as a suspect for having turned them in. And what this book does is looks at all those cases. They got their hands on as much information as they could. It took them six years. They can't actually say definitively who did it, but what they can say is who seems the most likely. They're able to rule people out and they're left with one name. Now, if you like audiobooks, I would strongly recommend listening to this one, especially if you're into true crime podcast, because it's read by my personal favorite narrator, Julia Whelan. And it's just like listening to a 10 hour true crime podcast. I know, I loved it. And Otto Frank said that he didn't want to know who the betrayer was. It didn't matter. It wouldn't change the course of his life. And Miep said she was curious, but then at some point she stopped. She didn't want to know. And people are like, well, why do you know who it is? And in an interview, someone asked her that and she looked at them and she said, can you keep a secret? And the person was like, yeah. And she kind of smiled and said, so can I. So I think she knew who it was. I don't want to spoil it because you have to listen to the whole thing. Who the most likely person was.
- [119:13]
Maria Tatar
My goodness. And you know I don't like suspense. And you know, I have to know Willie's going to be free before I see the movie. Like.
- [119:21]
Holly Frey
Okay, so do you want me to tell you? I mean, if you don't want to listen, I'll tell you who they came up with.
- [119:25]
Maria Tatar
Tell me off. Tell me off recording because I know there's people that like, it will be really mad.
- [119:29]
Holly Frey
Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I, I just, I thought, I mean, Julie Whalen, she does such a fantastic job. Strongly recommend that.
- [119:37]
Maria Tatar
So two kids books that I like. Behind the Bookcase, Miep Geese and Frank and the Hiding Place by Barbara Lowell, illustrated by Valentina Toro and Miep. And the most famous diary, the Woman who Rescued Anne Frank's Diary by Meg Pincus and Jordi Solano. Those two are really good. So I have a lot of links and I'm gonna just blow through the subjects really quick again. The links will be on our website, thehistorychicks.com this is just rabbit holes that you can fall down if you have a mind to. Number one, Anne frank.org for all of your Anne Frank needs. They have a lot there. They have biographies of all the helpers, all of the adjacent people, the Frank family, the bad guys. I mean, they're on it. They have a lot of things. In addition, I have information about the child airlifts after World War I, taking the children to different countries that affected Miep when she was a child. Also a TikTok of the. Of Miep talking about the moment Otto read the news that his daughters were dead. The promo film for Opetka. Then also all about King Leopold and the Nazis and how he was trying to campaign to get Belgium made into a private kingdom for himself. The Hunger Winter. More about that. Also, I didn't talk about this, but there was another flower based resistance movement in the Netherlands called Carnation Day. And they sort of en masse pretended that the crown Prince's birthday had been a national holiday which they didn't really 100% like think that highly of him before he was the JCPenney of people. Kind of like I think nothing. I mean, you know, he was respected and everything, but he, he didn't merit a national day of happiness. But everyone went and put carnations everywhere to celebrate his birthday. And of course at this time the Germans are still like, oh, well, this is. This looks like a big deal, this birthday of this guy. And it turned out, as they discovered they were being tricked, that they enacted great retribution if you put up a picture of any member of the royal family referred to them in any way or in fact were a coronation. So I am gonna give you links to that. So they were never gonna take it, were they? The people of the Netherlands, they were always gonna find a way to show their displeasure. I like that about them.
- [122:00]
Holly Frey
Yeah, there's. The Anne Frank house has a website. We'll send you to that. The Frank Family center in Frankfurt, which was the one established by Otto Frank, Also a website. And there's a Meep Geese website that was run by her son Paul until he died just a few years ago. And I take every opportunity to send you to the Jewish Women's Archive. There's all kinds of information on there. Not necessarily a lot about this particular subject, but you'll find something you want to read about on there.
- [122:30]
Maria Tatar
And the Yad Vashem organization has a list and many biographies of all the people who have received the same honor that Neap and Jan did. People that helped their Jewish neighbors and friends and strangers.
- [122:45]
Holly Frey
We already talked about 1988's the Attic, the Hiding of Anne Frank with Mary Steenbergen. The script did win an Emmy, but that whole series was redone recently in 2023. It's called a Small Light, starring Bel Powley. It's an eight part series. It's on Disney and Hulu, and you can pay for it on Prime. I had seen it when it first came out and then again very recently. And I. Yeah, there's some changes to the story, you know, for drama, whatever. But I thought it was so well done. She really reminds. She's, again, she's not really blonde, but Bel Powley, really, I thought she did an amazing job.
- [123:27]
Maria Tatar
Okay. Okay, good. I. I didn't see all of that. I watched just the trailer, so I'm looking forward to experiencing that.
- [123:35]
Holly Frey
Oh, I watched it for you because I watched it twice. Yeah. And then of course, Anne Frank remembered that documentary based on Miep's book that won a best documentary Oscar in 1995.
- [123:47]
Maria Tatar
Well, that will do it. And end part two of our coverage of the life of Miep Geese. And in closing, I would like to leave you with a quote from Miep herself applicable to the modern day. I think. I don't like being called a hero because no one should ever think you have to be special to help others. My story is a story of very ordinary people during extraordinary times. Times the like of which I hope with all my heart will never, never come again. It is for all of us ordinary people all over the world to see to it that they do not. Thanks for listening.
- [124:28]
Holly Frey
Bye.
- [124:30]
Maria Tatar
If you learned something today or something we said struck you, please, please, please share Meep Geese Part 1 and 2 with your friends or leave a review for us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are Pinterest boards up for both Miep and Anne Frank. And while you're at it, how about Audrey Hepburn 1 Etta von Heemstra, the bootlegger of ration cards? They're all on the Pinterest app hestorychicks, and the links and books we mentioned will all be on our website, thehistorychicks.com the song at the end is by Kylie Daly and it's called Softly to Myself. It's so melancholy and atmospheric and really expresses, I don't know, I guess, the interior of me and how she was feeling. I love it a lot. See you next time.
- [125:34]
C
I'm hushing the dog on the chain I'm lining up stones on the edge of the bank Rally the troops for another reflection, friend I sing this softly to myself I sing this softly to myself I'm very beneath the sand there's no way to speak or reach out my hand Watching the paper slowly unfold Bracing for news that I can't bear to hold While I'm singing this song to myself I sing this softly to myself Tore up my chains on the fence miss Iron road I cannot bend but my walking is lighter when I walk with a friend I sing this softly to myself I sing this softly to myself I'm waking up early again Sitting alone and listening There is no separation from you and the in I sing this softly to myself I sing this softly to myself.