Miep has been described by someone who met her after the war as "a small, delicate, intelligent young woman." She was born in Vienna, and she was sent to Holland after World War I as an "under-nourished child" in whom a welfare organization had taken an interest.
She remained in Amsterdam, and in 1933 she met Mr. Frank, who hired her to work for the Travis company. When Austria was absorbed by Germany, she was given a German passport, and after the Germans occupied Holland, in 1940, she was asked to join a new club called "The German Girls Club in the Netherlands." She declined, stating quite bluntly that she did not want to join. A few days later she was summoned to the German Consulate, her passport was stamped as being invalid after three months, when she would have either to become a Dutch citizen or emigrate as "a stateless person."
At that time, Miep and Henk van Santen, a young Dutchman, intended to get married, and the situation created by the Nazis obliged them to move the date forward. There were various technical and bureaucratic difficulties, but in the end, with the cooperation of other Dutch citizens, Miep and Henk were married in July 1941, and Miep was legally able to remain in Holland.
Henk, like many Dutch people, worked in the Dutch underground resistance organization, which helped Jews and opponents of the Nazis hide from their oppressors. Miep and Koophuis knew or guessed what Henk was doing, but neither ever tried to stop him.
Throughout the period when Anne and the other members of the group were in hiding, Miep helped and encouraged them. She brought them food and visited them in their hiding place, bringing news from the outside and a breath of fresh air when she came. Anne longed for someone new to talk to, and Miep was a good friend to her. Together with Elli, she arranged little gifts and surprises on birthdays and festivals, brought wild flowers, and generally did her best to make the situation of the group in hiding a little more tolerable.
