Monday, January 11, 2010

RIP, Miep Gies

What a brave woman. This part, especially, touched me.
After the apartment was raided by the German police, Gies gathered up Anne's scattered notebooks and papers and locked them in a drawer for her return after the war. The diary, which Anne Frank was given on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life in hiding from June 12, 1942 until August 1, 1944.

Gies refused to read the papers, saying even a teenager's privacy was sacred. Later, she said if she had read them she would have had to burn them because they incriminated the "helpers."
Emphasis mine. I always felt a little weird about reading Anne Frank's diary without her permission. And in this age where we all spew our inner thoughts all over the internet, Gies's respect for the privacy of others seems all the more admirable.

There should be more people like her. RIP.

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