Meip Gies dies at age 100.

[flamin lib]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/01/11/obit.miep.gies/

Meip Gies died today as the result of falling and breaking a hip yesterday. Ms Gies is credited with saving the family of Anne Frank and retrieving her diary.

Until the end of her life Ms Gies maintained that she did nothing extraordinary and that many others performed much more bravely. As an aside she said that she chose not to make much of her actions because to make them sound brave or sacrificing might discourage others from doing similar things.

[Captain Hilts]

1. Why is this in the presidential forum?

[flamin lib]

2. Because I'm a dumb ass and clicked on the wrong forum.

Alert the mods please!

[Captain Hilts]

4. I'm glad you posted it. nt

[TwilightGardener]

3. Nice to see that she was blessed with a long life.

[rurallib]

5. when true heros like this die, I wonder if I was in those situations

if I would have the courage to do the right thing like they did? What incredible, quiet courage

[BlueMTexpat]

6. I visited the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam in 2000.

As it happened, our stay there occurred during the ghastly recount circus that followed the November 2000 voting, but just before the SC "selection" of the most disastrous Pres-Veep combo in US history.
You have to see literally how the house was situated in the midst of daily life there to appreciate fully the risks that this woman and those who assisted her took. The place was literally crawling with German soldiers and Gestapo spies. Their courage is something that we can only hope to emulate, should we ever face anything similar.
The Frank family was not the only family that was hidden by Dutch citizens during that awful period. But it is the one that we know the most about, thanks to Miep Gies having saved the family papers. She was very fortunate not to have suffered a harsher fate herself.

FYI: here's the Wiki write-up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miep_Gies

[CBR]

7. RIP for a great woman. nt

[flamin lib]

8. This already made it to the Greatest page here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4220832

StarfarerBill had the common sense to post it where it belonged.