For the millions moved by Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, here at last is Miep's own astonishing story. For more than two years, Miep Gies and her husband helped hide the Franks from the Nazis. Like thousands of unsung heroes of the Holocaust, they risked their lives each day to bring food, news, and emotional support to the victims.

From her own remarkable childhood as a World War I refugee to the moment she places a small, red-orange, checkered diary -- Anne's legacy -- in Otto Frank's hands, Miep Gies remembers her days with simple honesty and shattering clarity. Each page rings with courage and heartbreaking beauty.

This memoir reveals the writer to be a woman of great courage, who determinedly pursued a course of action founded upon deep humanitarian convictions despite great personal danger. Gies was the trusted employee to whom Otto Frank turned when his family was forced into hiding in their attempt to escape deportation and death. Teenagers who have read Anne Frank: the Diary of a Young Girl (Doubleday, 1967) will surely want to read about Gies' adventures in secretly obtaining provisions for eight people for two years. The characterizations of the Frank family, particularly Anne, with whom Gies had a special friendship, are perceptive. Gies describes the day the Franks were captured, following their betrayal by persons still unknown. These vignettes and the description of what was happening in Amsterdam provide insight into how the Nazi occupation affected the lives of innocent people, and into the heroism of a remarkable woman, Miep Gies.