Miep, may the angels lead you into Paradise

Miep Gies official site

'More than twenty thousand Dutch people helped to hide Jews and others in need of hiding during those years. I willingly did what I could to help. My husband did as well. It was not enough.

There is nothing special about me. I have never wanted special attention. I was only willing to do what was asked of me and what seemed necessary at the time.'

I cannot recall when I first read The Diary of Anne Frank - I was young, but old enough to have a chilling acquaintance with the details of the Holocaust. Decades later, I would say that, even for those of us who were remote from the events (I was not yet born during the War), anyone who, for example, read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which I had, can testify that there are images so horrid that they cannot be forgotten till the end of one's days.

Nor should they, I might add. I have a fairly extensive background in history, and no illusions that there ever has been a time when horror couldn't be written on every page. Yet, somehow, when one is reading ancient history, or even about those being drawn and quartered in the modern era, one can have the aftermath of the infection of the Victorian era - the sense that mankind has evolved, has gone beyond the violence. (Any day's news broadcast can tell us otherwise - but it took Auschwitz and Hiroshima to shake the silly Victorian optimism from its pillar, and don't most of us tend to think that 'barbarian' horror is from a day long gone?) The blessings of technology had a dark side - in our own day, the thirst for blood could be quenched on far greater numbers than in the past.

When centenarian Miep Gies died this week, as always I remembered how astonishing I found her love, courage, and dedication to be. I cannot imagine ever having the courage to shield the Franks at risk of what horrors the Nazis could have inflicted on one caught doing so. Not too long ago, I saw a televised interview with Miep (and others who had known the Frank family.) When she spoke, casually and with hopelessness and frustration, by no means heroism, predominant, of how, after the Franks arrest, she'd gone to Gestapo headquarters to see if she could do anything to have them released, I was amazed. (Granted - faced with the plight of the Jews during the period, I would have had no qualms about, perhaps, seeing them outfitted with cassocks, or baptising them with a pitcher in my basin so I could swear they were Christians - rendering unto Caesar did not matter to me - but I cannot imagine getting within a mile of the dreaded Gestapo, the more were I already known to be in big trouble.)

I've included a link at the beginning of this post, so that those who wish to learn more of Miep can do so. She was a remarkable woman - but possessed a trait more rare than courage in having true humility (by which I mean truth, not abasement. Certainly no namby-pamby type who would fit the sickening images our early catechism books gave of the 'humble' would go to Gestapo headquarters - and I hope none of my Jewish friends are offended by my thinking of how Jesus, unlike his apostles, didn't run from Pontius Pilate. Had I needed to endure the terror Miep must have experienced the day when the Nazis stormed the 'secret annexe,' I probably would have dropped dead in an instant - her telling the main officer she recognised his accent since she also was Viennese shows me someone who could 'keep her cool' to a degree I can only admire from afar.) Miep knew she attracted notice because of Anne's writings, but insisted that many in the Netherlands did far more than she to attempt to shelter their Jewish friends.

Whenever I next read of history (other than culture - my speciality - where 0the wars make me cringe), I must always remember that, though the blood-thirsty will 'get the press,' there are thousands of good, dedicated people out there who, however powerless situations may cause them to be, are doing 'what seems necessary.' I'm just leaving my readers with the thought (even if, like myself, they content themselves with headlines on Yahoo, and cannot even bear to read news reports daily lest they become ill from the exposure to violence) that there is enormous goodness in this world.The goodness, of course, may not have power to stop the evil, but I believe it is far more a part of our human nature (as those created in the divine image) than the horrid details would have us remember.