A tale of COURAGE

How a miniseries tells the remarkable story of Miep Gies, who helped hide Anne Frank and her family

- IAN MACEWAN

A SMALL LIGHT

NEW FROM TUESDAY 2 MAY, DISNEY+ DRAMA (TWO EPISODES RELEASED WEEKLY)

The posthumous publication of Germany-born teenager Anne Frank’s diary in 1947 gave the world an astonishing and moving first-hand account of how two Jewish families hid from the Nazis in occupied Amsterdam during World War Two.

What is less well known is the role of the friends of the Frank family who risked their lives to try to save them from the Nazi death camps, where Anne, her sister Margot and her mother Edith would perish after the Franks were arrested in 1944, having remained undetected for over two years.

Those unsung heroes are at the heart of eight-part Disney+ drama A Small Light, which centres on young Austrian woman Miep Gies (Everything I Know about Love’s Bel Powley), who worked for Anne’s father, Otto (Ray Donovan’s Liev Schreiber).

RISKING EVERYTHING

Miep helped to conceal the Frank family in a secret annexe in Otto’s office building and also found and preserved Anne’s diary.