Sheltered Anne Frank, touched lives

It was with special sorrow that I learned of the passing of Miep Gies, the woman who risked her life during the Nazi occupation of Holland to bring food, medicines, provisions and outside companionship to Anne Frank, her family and the other lodgers in a secret annex [“Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank, dies at 100,” Newsline, Jan. 12].

I had the profound privilege of meeting Gies at Temple De Hirsch Sinai in 1995 when she was in Seattle to open an exhibit about Anne Frank. When I shook her hand, I remember feeling overwhelmed that I was touching the same hand that had held Anne Frank’s hand when Frank was afraid, soothed her forehead when she was sick and stroked her hair when she was melancholy. In this way, for a shining moment, I shared an intense connection with the timeless young diarist.

The experience left me at a loss for words and I didn’t get a chance to thank Gies for her courageous altruism or her retrieval and preservation of the scattered pages of Anne Frank’s writings — without which the world would have never known her diary. But looking into Gies’ pallid blue eyes, I sensed that she didn’t want to hear that anyway and that she knew that she had been the agent for a moment I would treasure the rest of my life.

— Mark Isaacs, Las Vegas