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Philosophy of life, Miep Gies

Miep Gies' faith in God changed over the course of her life.

Subject

All we know about this subject is what Miep says about it in her book and in an explanation during an interview:

  • "My parents had been practising Catholics and had taken me to church a few times as a little girl in Vienna, but I didn't like that."
  • In Leiden, Miep did not attend a church. 'But I never doubted that God existed'. This changed during the war years.[1] After the war, Miep started reading The Old and New Testament and books about all kinds of religions; Judaism, Catholicism and Protestantism.[2]
  • In a 1992 interview, she said she came to her religious quest through doubt. She could not imagine that the complexity of nature was not governed by a higher power. Since the war, however, she struggled with the fact that God had allowed everything to happen without intervention.[3]
  • The same book on faith and life attitudes was on her table in Desert Dune Street for many years. She said of it: 'I like to read this book regularly, especially on Sundays. Although I used to go to church, I feel that I have passed the church now. I have my own faith and I am content with that'.[4]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Miep Gies & Alison Leslie Gold, Herinneringen aan Anne Frank. Het verhaal van Miep Gies, de steun en toeverlaat van de familie Frank in het Achterhuis, Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1987, p. 230.
  2. ^ Gies & Gold, Herinnneringen aan Anne Frank, p. 231.
  3. ^ Anne Frank Stichting, Getuigenarchief, Santrouschitz: interview, deel 1, p. 8, 1992, met Miep en Jan Gies.
  4. ^ Uit de toespraak van Teresien da Silva bij de uitvaart van Miep Gies, 18 januari 2010.