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Disney+ series ‘A Small Light’ tells the Anne Frank story from the perspective of the woman who hid her
(JTA) — The short life of Anne Frank has inspired generations of filmmakers and television producers. The list of past productions range from “The Diary of Anne Frank” (1959), whose director George Stevens witnessed Nazi occupation as a U.S. army officer, to the Academy Award-winning documentary “Anne Frank Remembered” — featuring the only known footage of Anne — to the Emmy Award-winning dramatized miniseries “Anne Frank: The Whole Story” (2001).
On Monday night, viewers will get another TV version. But “A Small Light,” an eight-episode series premiering on National Geographic and streaming Tuesday on Disney+, tells the story from a new perspective: through the eyes of the woman who hid the Frank family.
Miep Gies was an independent 24-year-old with a busy social calendar and a dance club membership when she began working for Anne Frank’s father Otto in 1933 at Opekta, his successful jam business in Amsterdam. As Jews were rounded up and deported from the Netherlands in 1942, her Jewish boss asked if she would be willing to hide his family in an annex above the office, and she did not hesitate.
“A Small Light” stars Bel Powley as Gies, Joe Cole as her husband Jan Gies and Liev Schreiber as Otto Frank. It’s named for a quote from the real Gies, who once said that she did not like to be called a hero because “even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can turn on a small light in a dark room.”
That metaphor had literal meaning for the Frank family and four others in the secret annex, who spent two years in a dark 450-square-foot space behind a hinged bookcase. Gies, her husband and four other employees of Otto Frank secretly kept eight Jews alive while running his business downstairs. Gies brought them food and library books, using black market ration cards and visiting several different grocers to avoid suspicion. Anne Frank said in her diary, “Miep is just like a pack mule, she fetches and carries so much.”
In the series, the “dark room” is seen less than Gies’ frenzied bicycle trips across Amsterdam, as she tries to sustain the appearance of a normal life. Her secret pushes her away from friends and family, while her marriage strains under the weight of ever-looming disaster. The creators of “A Small Light” sought to recreate a hero as a modern, flawed, at times even annoying person.
“She’s not some kind of saint,” executive producer Joan Rater told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “She had moods, she had a new marriage, she wanted to hang out with friends. She wanted to take a day off and she couldn’t.”
“I think everyone can relate to Miep,” said Powley, an English-Jewish actress known for starring in several British shows and in American films such as “The King of Staten Island.” “She was just an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances.”
Although “A Small Light” is rife with tense scenes and suspense, the producers fashioned it with young audiences in mind. The show conspicuously avoids the explicit violence and horror typically expected of its subject matter, leaving out concentration camps and murders. Rater and co-creator Tony Phelan wanted children like their own to watch the series. While they were writing it, their daughter was the same age as Anne was when she was writing her diary.
Some young viewers have seen Anne’s story being swept up in literary purges across U.S. school districts, as part of the debate over what should be taught in American classrooms. Earlier this month, a Florida high school removed an illustrated adaptation of her diary after determining that references to her sexuality were “not age appropriate.” The same edition was previously yanked from a Texas school district, although it was reinstituted after public outcry. Meanwhile, a Tennessee school board banned “Maus,” Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about his father’s experience in the Holocaust, after objections over curse words and nudity last year.
The name “Anne Frank” has long been synonymous with Holocaust education as her diary remains one of the world’s most-read books, with translations in over 70 languages. But the “relatable” rescuer presents another appealing way to teach children about one of the most wretched chapters in human history, said Brad Prager, a professor of German and film studies at the University of Missouri.
“It is the message that people like to hear,” Prager told the JTA. “If you ask a fourth-grader why we watch TV and movies — well, this is so that you can learn to do the right things, or you can learn that in certain circumstances anyone can be a hero.”
Liev Schreiber plays Otto Frank and Amira Casar plays Edith Frank in “A Small Light.” (National Geographic for Disney/Dusan Martincek)
A broader lens on the Netherlands during World War II is less palatable. The Germans and their Dutch collaborators implemented a highly effective system of persecution: Between 1942 and 1944, about 107,000 Dutch Jews were deported primarily to Auschwitz and Sobibor, then murdered. Only 5,200 of them survived.
Although Gies did everything she could to save the Jews in her care, the unwritten ending to Anne’s diary is well-known. Three days after her last entry in August 1944, Dutch police officers led by SS officer Karl Josef Silberbauer raided the annex. Gies escaped arrest by observing that she and Silberbauer shared a hometown.
“My luck was that the police officer in charge came from Vienna, the same town where I was born,” she said in a 1997 interview with Scholastic. “I noticed this from his accent. So, when he came to interrogate me, I jumped up and said, as cheerfully as I could, ‘You are from Vienna? I am from Vienna too.’ And, although he got very angry initially, it made him obviously decide not to arrest me.”
In a valiant last-ditch effort, Gies walked into the German police office the next day and attempted to buy her friends’ freedom. She was unsuccessful.
Gies found Anne’s notebooks and papers strewn on the annex floor. Without reading them, she gathered and tucked the writings into a drawer, hoping to return them to their owner. Germany had all but lost the war already, with Allied troops less than 250 miles from Amsterdam.
The Franks were packed on the last train ever to leave the Westerbork transit camp for the Auschwitz extermination camp. Otto was separated from his wife Edith and daughters Anne and Margot on the Auschwitz platform. In October, the girls were transported to Bergen-Belsen, and Edith succumbed to starvation in January 1945. Her daughters died of typhus a month later, when Anne was 15 years old.
Some studies have suggested that knowledge about the Holocaust is diminishing. In 2020, the Claims Conference found that 63% of Millenial and Gen Z Americans (ages 18-39) did not know that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. More than 10% did not recall ever hearing about the Holocaust, while 11% believed that Jews caused it. Another Claims Conference survey reported that despite living in the country where Anne hid from the Nazis, a majority of Dutch people did not know the Holocaust took place there.
“In a time that antisemitism is on the rise and there are more displaced people in the world than there ever have been before, it couldn’t be a better time to re-explore this part of history, but through the lens of this ordinary young woman,” said Powley.
While “A Small Light” celebrates the power of the individual, the fate of Anne Frank also represents the failure of the whole world, said Prager. By centering Gies’ perspective, he said, the series risks making Anne a peripheral character in her own brutally aborted story.
“When you decenter Anne Frank, one thing is that you lose the Jewish perspective on the persecution,” he said.
Otto Frank, the sole survivor from the annex, appeared at Jan and Miep Gies’ doorstep after the war and ended up living with them for over seven years. In July 1945, Gies watched as he received the notice that his children were dead.
“He took it in his hands and suddenly he became eerily quiet,” Gies said in an interview for the Anne Frank House. “You cannot explain it, it was a silence that speaks. I looked up. He was white as a sheet. And he handed me the letter.”
Gies read the piece of paper, stood up and opened her desk drawer. “I took all the diaries, with all the separate sheets and everything and handed them over to Mr. Frank,” she said.
She told him, “This is your daughter Anne’s legacy.”
In 2010, Gies died at 100 years old. Every year on Aug. 4 — the day the Franks were arrested — she stayed at home, drew her curtains and did not answer the phone or doorbell.
Powley believes the show’s angle gives a fresh perspective on “your mom’s dusty copy of Anne Frank’s diary.” She approached the role of Gies with a heavy sense of responsibility.
“I feel a deeper connection to this story than I have with other projects,” she said. “This offer came to me on Holocaust Memorial Day and it immediately had that special feeling to it. My grandma, the Jewish matriarch of my family, died during COVID. I feel that she would be proud.”
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Huckabee calls settler attack on Washington Post photographer a ‘despicable act of terror’
(JTA) — U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Saturday condemned an attack in the West Bank by masked settlers on a Washington Post photographer. The attack, which also targeted Palestinians harvesting their olives, occurred Friday and comes amid a sharp rise in settler violence.
Heidi Levine, the Washington Post photographer who holds U.S. citizenship, described the attack to reporters from her hospital bed.
“I got jumped and I saw in the very beginning at least 25, maybe 50 of them, and I was on the ground and they were kicking me for like 10 minutes,” she said.
“We have called for a full investigation, arrest, and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law to whoever participated in this,” Huckabee wrote on X. “Attacking a female photographer is a despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards. Dishonorable act of senseless violence.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also condemned the “shocking violence” and said he had called Levine to apologize. “I expressed my deepest sorrow to Heidi and apologized for what she went through. The despicable behavior of the perpetrators of this attack does not represent the citizens or the values of the State of Israel.”
Video footage from the scene shows masked settlers surrounding and attacking Levine. Some settlers at the scene were masked and carrying weapons. Palestinians can also be seen throwing stones toward the settlers.
A Palestinian was reportedly shot in additional clashes in the area. The Israel Defense Forces alleged in an official statement that soldiers “fired toward a suspect who ran toward them, carrying a sharp object and posed a threat.” Several vehicles were set on fire by the settlers.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was equivocal in addressing the attack, stopping short of directly condemning the assailants.
He said that the circumstances in which Levine was allegedly assaulted “remain unclear,” while adding that “Israel unequivocally condemns violence against anyone.”
According to Netanyahu’s statement, “200 Arabs and far-left activists confronted approximately 40 Israeli youths.”
“We will not allow disputed incidents to be exploited to demonize the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria,” the statement said, using the biblical names for the West Bank.
Netanyahu faces elections in less than two weeks and can ill afford to alienate his far-right coalition partners who are aligned with extreme settler factions.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, by contrast, issued a forceful condemnation of the attack and linked it to the policies of Netanyahu’s government.
“Jewish terror attacks, this time targeting a Washington Post photographer as well, are not a failure of the government — they are the government’s policy,” Lapid said.
“We will put an end to this. It is a disgrace to the State of Israel, a disgrace to the Jewish people, and a disaster on the international stage,” he added. Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has surged since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel. Netanyahu’s government has sought to downplay the phenomenon, often portraying the perpetrators as a small group of violent youths. But numerous figures in Israel’s political and security establishments have warned that the violence is a broader and dangerous phenomenon.
Levine told reporters the settlers forcibly took her equipment. “All I remember afterwards is that Palestinians managed to come and rescue me and try to carry me, and then an ambulance came,” she said.
The IDF acknowledged the incident in an official statement, saying that “a female journalist was injured” during a “confrontation.” The military said troops dispersed those involved and that “details of the incident will be examined.”
“Violence against innocent civilians is a grave and intolerable phenomenon that requires a coordinated, multi-agency response. The IDF will work together with the relevant authorities to eradicate this phenomenon,” the military said.
The IDF did not announce any arrests in connection with the attack. Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has frequently gone unpunished, with many such incidents resulting in no arrests.
The Foreign Press Association, which represents international media in Israel and the Palestinian territories, condemned the attack, saying Levine was “badly beaten by Israeli settlers” and had sustained moderate injuries.
“This is the latest in a long line of violent attacks by Israeli settlers against journalists and other civilians in the occupied West Bank. Yet our repeated calls for action to confront this lawlessness have been ignored by Israeli authorities,” the association said.
Matt Murray, executive editor of the Post, issued a statement calling for an investigation. “While we are relieved that Heidi has received medical care and is safe, we are outraged by this unwarranted attack on a journalist doing her job and urge a thorough investigation and follow-through from authorities,” Murray said.
The post Huckabee calls settler attack on Washington Post photographer a ‘despicable act of terror’ appeared first on The Forward.
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As Netanyahu loses support before election, Ben-Gvir rises in polls
(JTA) — RAMLA – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the parties in his coalition seem to be losing support heading into Israel’s first election since Oct. 7 – with one exception. Otzma Yehudit, headed by Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, is seeing a rise in the polls.
Ben-Gvir’s growing popularity ahead of the Oct. 27 election was on full display on a recent weekday when the far-right politician, surrounded by a massive entourage of security guards, police and flag-waving fans, made his way through the central Israeli city of Ramla’s marketplace.
Yet, amidst the cheering and celebration, the extreme nationalism that has contributed to his meteoric rise through the ranks of Israel’s political system – and made Ben-Gvir a household name even beyond Israel’s borders – also drew ire and deep-seated fear in this city known for its mixed Jewish-Arab population.
“Here comes the next defense minister,” a gaggle of teenage boys in matching Ben-Gvir T-shirts chanted as the minister walked through the market, greeting shoppers and stallholders begging for selfies. Ben-Gvir has his sights set on being Israel’s next minister of defense, a huge promotion from his current role managing internal security.
At several of the stalls, the controversial minister stopped to embrace vendors. At a pickle stand, he sampled olives. At a candy store, the owner joyously threw handfuls of small candies over the passing group. And at a juice stand, Ben-Gvir and his entourage were treated to complimentary cups of lemonade.
The minister, elated by the welcome, smiled and waved at passersby, grabbing phones to take selfies, and even chatting with excited fans on video calls.
Beyond the celebration in Ramla, however, Ben-Gvir has been condemned in Israel and beyond for calling for the expulsion of Gazans and using dehumanizing language about Palestinians. A disciple of Jewish extremist Meir Kahane, he for years kept a photo of Baruch Goldstein, who mowed down Palestinian worshippers at a Hebron mosque, in his living room.
It is not only his rhetoric and symbolic gestures that have drawn polarizing admiration and anger. During his four years as national security minister, Ben-Gvir has actively downgraded conditions in Israeli jails, pushed through a law establishing a death penalty for Palestinian terrorists and has led the police during the proliferation of settler violence against West Bank villagers.
These measures have earned opprobrium abroad, but they appear to be winning votes. His supporters are ever more impressed with how he puts his words, and paperwork, into action – and shares it proudly on TikTok.
Polls published this week show that even as Netanyahu and his coalition partners are losing votes to the opposition bloc led by former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot, Ben-Gvir is getting more. Otzma Yehudit, translated as “Jewish Power,” is predicted to increase from its current six seats to as many as nine.
On the ground, in the marketplace in Ramla, Ben-Gvir’s visit drew extreme reactions ranging from sheer joy to pure anger.
“I love Ben-Gvir,” gushed Hodaya Nabara, 52, who seconds before snapped a selfie with the politician. “He does what he says he will do.”
A resident of southern Israel, Nabara said she was most impressed by how he had ordered the demolition of illegally built homes, in some cases whole villages, built by the burgeoning Israeli Bedouin population, in the Negev region where there is little oversight of construction, and where Bedouin say the government neglects their needs.
“They need to know there is a red line and they can’t do whatever they want,” she said.
But as the entourage passed by Michal Sharabi, the 53-year-old began hurling insults at him and shaking.
“I can’t stand him at all, because of him there is no peace in this country,” she told JTA after calming down. “He is a lowlife, and the people going with him don’t believe in themselves. Is he not embarrassed to come to this city, where Jews and Arabs live together … It’s a chutzpah. I’m furious.”
In a nearby grocery store, a mixed group of Arabs and Jews frowned at the unfolding spectacle.
“We don’t like being defined as Arabs or Jews; we are ‘Ramlaim’ (residents of Ramla),” insisted Uri, who said he was Jewish but declined to give his full name. “We are all neighbors here, and he is making people fight.”
His friend, Hamudi Abu Ghanam, said Arab residents of the city like him were impacted by the events of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched deadly raids inside Israel, just like the Jews, and many came to help out but that Ben-Gvir still incited against them.
“He is racist,” he said. “Since Oct. 7, we are all against Hamas, and instead of saying thank you, he comes and destroys people’s homes.”
Ben-Gvir’s stop in Ramla struck a particular nerve because the city, which is about 78% Jewish and 22% Arab, was a central point of tension in 1948 when Israel was created. For Arabs, the evidence of the Nakba, which Palestinians call the “catastrophe” of Israel’s creation that displaced the local Palestinian Arab population during its war of independence, is all around in ruins.
At one point on his jaunt through the market, two Arab girls donning traditional hijab headcoverings hovered nearby, but they quickly made a U-turn when they realized who was at the center of the commotion.
Some Jewish onlookers pointed to his theatrics as reasons they were unimpressed by him. Benny Muhtar, 68, a Jewish resident of Ramla, told JTA he thought Ben-Gvir was full of “hot air” – a populist with no substantial policies.
“Look at the young men surrounding him; they are making a lot of noise like this is a serious campaign … that is what is making the people look up and take notice, but none of it is real, and he is doing a lot of damage,” he said.
Others enjoyed the spectacle but, with less than two weeks to go until casting their vote, were still unsure whom they would choose.
“He’s done a lot of really good things,” said Edna Mahbesh, 65, who was handing out the free lemonade. “I really hope he is successful in the election.”
But she was not sure if she would actually vote for him.
“I’ll decide that next week,” she said.
Arbel Flehandler, 19, a first-time voter, stood on the side, watching in awe as the politician passed by.
“He is really good and does a lot of good things,” he said. “I am definitely going to vote for a right-wing party, but not sure if I will vote for him or not. This is my first time, and I am still thinking about it.”
Zehava Perets, 80, said the reactions to Ben-Gvir showed just how polarized Israel is right now.
“It is such a shame there are so many divisions,” she said. “I really don’t know who I will vote for … There are a few good people in each bloc, but it is impossible to get them to work together.”
Liron Lavie, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University, said the extreme reactions for and against Ben-Gvir “speaks to how politics works these days” – as politicians “connect with the electorate through emotional reaction and a sense of pride or fear.”
She said Ben-Gvir should be viewed as part of the “larger global trend where far-right parties are getting stronger.”
Lavie assessed that Otzma Yehudit benefited from the growing appeal of providing simple solutions and simple messaging – and that Ben-Gvir was especially effective on social media platforms such as TikTok.
“At the end of the day, people prefer simple messages,” said Lavie.
She also said that Ben-Gvir, despite being in the government on Oct. 7, had successfully distanced himself from that fact and positioned himself as a strong alternative to Netanyahu on the right.
“Likud and Netanyahu are losing ground,” she said. “They are being criticized about how they managed the situation, either from the center and left or from the right, allowing voters to go to Ben-Gvir, who was able to position himself as an [alternative] to Netanyahu from the right.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post As Netanyahu loses support before election, Ben-Gvir rises in polls appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish Democrats launch ads blasting Young Republicans for praising Hitler
(JTA) — The Jewish Democratic Council of America is launching an attack ad on social media in battleground districts, slamming Young Republicans for praising Hitler and using antisemitic tropes in group chats.
The new ad, which is running on Meta platforms, warns of “thousands of messages shared in a group chat,” in which “members muse about using gas chambers against political opponents.” Readouts play over images of text messages such as “I love Hitler,” uncovered in a Politico investigation last year of exchanges between leaders of Young Republican groups across the country on the Telegram app.
The ad also includes footage of Vice President JD Vance responding to the revelations by saying that “we’re not canceling kids because they do something stupid in a group chat.”
A PBS News anchor then warns that “this is the speech of Republicans today who are going to be the leaders of the party tomorrow.”
“They’re voting. Are you?” the ad concludes.
The JDCA ad blitz comes as each party is trying to paint the other as extreme – with Democrats accusing Republicans of associations with far-right racists and Republicans linking Democrats to anti-Israel candidates and officials, including Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Haile Soifer, CEO of the JDCA, said in a statement that the ad aims to remind “younger Jewish voters across the country of the GOP’s dangerous extremism ahead of the midterms.”
“If young Republican leaders feel emboldened to praise Hitler in group chats, we shouldn’t be surprised Republicans under Trump echo, espouse, and amplify extreme rhetoric and antisemitic tropes,” Soifer added.
The ads, which the JDCA says cost close to $300,000, are targeting Jewish voters in six key states – Ohio, Michigan, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Iowa – and in every House district that the Cook Political Report deems a “toss-up,” a JDCA spokesperson said.
The JDCA has not endorsed El-Sayed.
The ads are aimed at “reaching younger Jewish voters,” a JDCA spokesperson said.
The text messages in the ads have been circulating since last October, when Politico unearthed a slew of chats from a Telegram channel.
The Kansas Young Republican club and New York’s statewide Young Republicans organization were disbanded shortly after the exposé’s publication, but a New York City counterpart, the New York Young Republicans Club, remained operational. The club hosted a gala in December that welcomed white nationalists and antisemitic conspiracy theorists.
Other cohorts that have since come under fire for similar such chats, including the University of Florida’s College Republicans chapter and the Florida International University College Republicans club.
Meanwhile, a Young Republican whose “I love Hitler” text was featured in the exposé is now defending his actions. Denying that he is antisemitic, he wrote that he’s “a guy with a dark sense of humor who sometimes finds himself funnier than he actually is.”
He accused fellow Republicans of becoming “the party of pearl-clutching,” using a term describing theatrical reactions to a situation that isn’t truly scandalous.
The vice president also denounced the phenomenon of pearl clutching, as noted in the soundbites of the JDCA ad. Vance, instead, described the text messages as “edgy, offensive jokes.”
The Young Republicans did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jewish Democrats launch ads blasting Young Republicans for praising Hitler appeared first on The Forward.
