The house in Amsterdam where Anne Frank and her family hid for over two years is now a major tourist attraction, visited by over a half-a-million people every year.
The Diary of Anne Frank, translated into 60 different languages, and the subject of a film and a play, ensured worldwide renown for this remarkable girl who was only 15 when she died in Belsen Concentration Camp. It tells the story of how her father Otto Frank, having fled Germany to escape persecution, had no choice but to cede ownership of his food manufacturing concern to his manager after the Nazis occupied Holland, and go into hiding with his family and four other Jews in a secret annexe in the same building. Unable to leave it, they slept by day so as to ensure that no sound would alert the neighbours or employees in the downstairs warehouse.
Amazing insight
As Anne faithfully recorded in her diary the activities, fears and the boredom of the daily lives of a diverse group of people, she showed an insight and understanding of life amazing for a girl of her age, and maintained a wry sense of humour despite the tragic circumstances.
Remembering the Holocaust against Jews, gypsies and other groups considered subhuman by the Nazis and the many previous holocausts such as the Inquisition, the Great Famine in this country and the horrific extermination of native peoples carried out by European imperial powers, the visitor to the Anne Frank House may seek some consolation and some sign of hope for humanity. Fortunately it is to be found in the incredible heroism of the many people who did everything possible to protect Nazi victims. In Holland alone it is estimated that some 20,000 Jews were hidden during the Occupation by ordinary people who risked life and liberty in the cause of humanity.
Anne's diary has ensured that some of these heroes will never be forgotten. They are Bep, Voskuijl, Johannes Kleiman, Victor Kuglar - and especially Miep Gies, herself a German national - all employees of the Frank Food Manufacturing concern.
They had the onerous task of providing for and protecting their charges. Kuglar, the office manager, acted as security officer and Anne says of him: "at times he finds the enormous responsibility for us so hard that he can hardly talk from the tension and strain."
It was a great problem in a time of strict rationing and food shortage to provide for those in hiding. Miep Gies, secretary of the firm, had the task of scrounging supplies from shopkeepers. Anne said: "Miep has so much to carry she looks like a pack mule. She goes forth nearly every day to scrounge up vegetables and then bicycles back with her purchase in large shoppingbags." There was also the ever-present risk that her food-gathering activities would raise the suspicions of the many native informers who plagued every occupied country. A special confidante of Anne, she helped her to remain contented and optimistic during the prolonged ordeal.
Anonymous call
Anne pays a tribute in her diary: "Our helpers who have managed to pull us through so far - never have they uttered a single word about the burden we must be."
It was a cruel blow when those in hiding were betrayed. An anonymous telephone call brought a raid by Gestapo Chief Karl Silberbrau together with four Dutch policemen. The Jews and their male helpers were arrested.
Miep Gies went to Gestapo headquarters a few days later and appealed unsuccessfully to Silberbrau to release the Jews, now doomed to be transported to concentration camps in Germany. She must have been a women of incredible courage, for even at that time she and her husband were hiding another Jewish man in their own house.
With the exception of Otto Frank, all the family died in gas chambers or as a result of ill-treatment. Anne succumbed to typhus in Belsen, just a few months before the close of the war. Her father returned to Amsterdam to find that Miep had recovered Anne's diary after the raid. He arranged for the publication of what Eleanor Roosevelt, framer of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, described as "one of the wisest and most moving commentaries on war".
Miep Gies said a few years ago: "To my great sorrow I was not able to save Anne's life but I did help her to live two years longer. In those two years, she wrote the diary that gives hope to people all over the world and calls for understanding and tolerance".
Vienna Police
What happened to the others involved in this drama? Herr Silberbrau, like many other German police seconded to the Gestapo, returned to his job after the war and for a time served as a detective in the Vienna Police Force. Nach ait an saol e! He died in 1971. It is remarkable how the police, judicial and banking establishments of all imperial countries, in peace or war, victory or defeat, protect themselves and readjust to the new political situation - same actors but a different play.
But the helpers did survive. Kuglar luckily escaped from a Belsen-bound prisoner train when it was attacked by Allied planes. Kleaman was released from prison at the war's end. Miep Gies, whose heroism was unique in its fortitude, has lived long enough to garner the recognition she deserves. Decorated by the Israeli, German and Dutch Governments she lives today, aged 91, in her Amsterdam apartment, unassisted and as mentally alert as ever, the last survivor of the tragic drama more than half-a-century ago.
Go maire si an cead agus nios mo!