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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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Iran Races to Rebuild Missile Arsenal, Israel Tests Upgraded Defenses Amid Fragile US Nuclear Talks
Iranian missiles are displayed in a park in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 31, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
As the prospect of renewed conflict looms, Iran is scrambling to restore its battered missile capabilities while Israel tests upgraded air defenses and accelerates military preparations for a potential confrontation.
Iran had 25 key sites housing long-range ballistic missile capabilities, 19 of which were struck during last June’s 12-day war, when the US and Israel bombed the regime’s nuclear facilities, according to Israel’s Channel 14.
The outlet’s latest report, drawing on satellite imagery, research by the Alma Institute for Middle Eastern Studies, and confirmations from security officials, reveals that all sites were equipped with underground infrastructure and suffered extensive surface and subterranean damage.
Yet, with the shadow of a new conflict looming, Iran has rushed to restore its shattered defense capabilities, reportedly completing some partial repairs already.
As of last month, the country’s main launch bases — whose surfaces suffered moderate to severe damage — appear to show clear signs of recovery and resumed operational activity.
Israeli officials estimate that the Islamist regime now possesses at least twice the missile arsenal it deployed in past attacks.
However, Iran’s missile launch capacity remains limited by shortages of launchers and rocket fuel, even as it reportedly works to restore these critical components as well.
As Tehran works to rebuild its strategic threat against the Jewish state amid rising regional tensions, Israel has successfully upgraded its missile defense systems and expanded its arsenal of anti-missile batteries, effectively reinforcing its deterrence capabilities.
On Wednesday, the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced a successful test of the “David’s Sling” air-defense system, designed to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles with advanced evasive capabilities.
Built on operational lessons from last year’s war, Israeli officials said the upgraded system can intercept cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, aircraft, and drones at medium and long ranges, reaching altitudes of 50 to 70 kilometers (31 to 43 miles).
From the Arrow system to the Iron Dome, Israel is bolstering its defense capabilities with extensive logistical preparations to maintain operational readiness during prolonged and intense missile attacks, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
At the top of the country’s operational defense pyramid is the Arrow system, a strategic, exo-atmospheric shield designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles while they are still outside the atmosphere, neutralizing threats at a distance and preventing environmental damage or the impact of unconventional warheads
Serving as the middle layer of Israel’s missile defense, the newly upgraded David’s Sling system works alongside the Iron Dome, which protects the home front and civilian settlements.
The country is also introducing the laser system Iron Beam, or “Magen Or,” capable of intercepting missiles quickly, accurately, and more efficiently than conventional systems
These latest developments come as regional tensions escalate over Iran’s nuclear program and fragile negotiations with the United States, raising concerns about a renewed conflict in the region.
Washington and Tehran resumed negotiations last Friday in Oman, marking the first direct engagement between US and Iranian officials since nuclear talks collapsed after the 12-day war in June.
With the chances of a deal still uncertain, US President Donald Trump has simultaneously launched a massive military buildup in the Gulf, pressuring the Iranian regime to return to the negotiating table if it wants to prevent a potential conflict.
On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Trump to discuss the prospects of a potential nuclear agreement with Tehran and the next steps in the talks. Israeli officials have said they want any agreement with Iran to include zero enrichment of uranium, limits on ballistic missiles, and a pullback of the regime’s support for terrorist groups across the Middle East.
“There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated. If it cannot, we will just have to see what the outcome will be,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social after their meeting.
“Last time Iran decided that they were better off not making a deal, they were hit with Midnight Hammer — that did not work well for them,” he continued, referring to the US operation to bomb Iranian nuclear sites in June. “Hopefully this time they will be more reasonable and responsible.”
Trump also told Axios in a Tuesday interview that he is considering deploying a second aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East to prepare for military action if negotiations with Iran fail.
“Either we will make a deal or we will have to do something very tough like last time,” Trump said.
According to multiple media reports, Washington has set three conditions for a nuclear agreement with Iran: halting uranium enrichment, restricting the country’s ballistic missile program, and ending the regime’s support for terrorist groups and other proxies throughout the Middle East.
However, Iran has long said all three demands are unacceptable, but two Iranian officials told Reuters its Islamist, authoritarian rulers view the ballistic missile program, not uranium enrichment, as the bigger issue.
In recent days, the US has indicated it is primarily concerned with the nuclear program, leaving some observers concerned that the Trump administration will strike a deal that’s too narrow in scope.
The Iranian government has already publicly rejected any transfer of uranium out of the country and ruled out negotiations over its ballistic missile program or support for proxy forces.
Cautious optimism about diplomacy has also been shaken by reported clashes between US and Iranian forces at sea as tensions rise.
Last week, the US military said it shot down an Iranian drone that had “aggressively” approached the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea. Hours later, forces from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) harassed a US-flagged, US-crewed merchant vessel in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump initially threatened to intervene in Iran if the regime killed anti-government protesters who took to the streets across the country in late December and early January. However, the Iranian government proceeded to crush the protests with a brutal crackdown, reportedly killing tens of thousands of people.
The US subsequently began its military buildup in the region, and Trump called on the regime to begin negotiations.
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US Congressional Race in Illinois Features Showdown Between AIPAC and New Anti-Israel Group
Aug. 12, 2025, Chicago, Illinois, US: Daniel Biss, mayor of Evanston, Illinois, attends a rally at Federal Plaza in Chicago after the announcement that the Trump administration has unilaterally ended the collective bargaining agreement with federal unions. Photo: Chicago Tribune via ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The US congressional race for Illinois’ 9th District is shaping up to become a battleground between the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Peace, Accountability, and Leadership PAC (PAL PAC), a newly formed pro-Palestinian political action committee.
The open competition to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky is widely considered to be a showdown in the Democratic primary between far-left newcomer and social media star Kat Abughazaleh, progressive Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, and moderate state Sen. Laura Fine.
Abughazaleh, a Palestinian-American Tik-Tok personality who has repeatedly accused Israel of so-called “genocide” in Gaza, has earned the endorsement of the far-left Justice Democrats organization. She also has received backing from PAL PAC over her stated support for “Palestinian rights.”
Margaret DeReus, the executive director of PAL PAC, showered praise on the social media star as someone who “represents an exciting new wave of bold and progressive democratic candidates in the 2026 midterms.”
PAL PAC describes itself as an advocacy group which seeks to reward political candidates and members of Congress who champion “Palestinian freedom and human rights” and oppose Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. Among the group’s initial endorsers are US Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib (MI), Ilhan Omar (MN), and Summer Lee (PA), all of whom are among the fiercest anti-Israel voices in Congress.
“A defining priority for PAL PAC is ending Israel’s ongoing human rights abuses against Palestinians and stopping US complicity in and backing of Israel’s apartheid system, illegal theft of Palestinian land, and genocide against Palestinians,” the group’s website reads. “We seek to elect champions of human rights for all, who will demonstrate clear, courageous, and consistent leadership on one of the morally defining political and human rights issues of our time.”
Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old influencer who recently moved to Illinois from Texas, has described her new endorsements from far-left organizations as evidence of her “growing movement of people who are done with a Democratic Party that has cast them aside in favor of profit, greed, and power.”
Biss, who is Jewish, has condemned the extent of Israel’s military operations in Gaza and has vowed to vote against additional military aid to the Jewish state. However, Biss also spent large stretches of his childhood in Israel and has expressed a generally positive sentiment toward the nation and its people.
Nonetheless, the mayor has promised not to accept any funding or support from AIPAC, accusing the prominent lobbying group, which seeks to foster bipartisan support for a strong US-Israel alliance, of having “MAGA-aligned donors,” using the acronym for President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement. Biss has also argued that accepting support from the organization would force him to “compromise” his progressive values.
“Daniel believes the special relationship between the United States and Israel means the US must do all it can to ensure long-term protection and prosperity of the Jewish homeland,” Biss’s campaign said in a statement.
“I do not share AIPAC’s hardline views,” Biss added.
Last month, US Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, penned a letter demanding answers from Biss, accusing him of failing to protect Jewish students during a pro-Hamas, anti-Israel encampment at Northwestern University that, lawmakers say, devolved into widespread antisemitic harassment and violence. Northwestern’s campus is located in Evanston.
In a sharply worded letter dated Jan. 28, Walberg said Biss refused to authorize Evanston police to assist when Northwestern requested help clearing the encampment in April 2024, despite reports of assaults, intimidation, and explicitly antisemitic incidents. Walberg wrote that the decision left the university unable to enforce the law safely, citing committee documents indicating Northwestern lacked sufficient police resources to carry out arrests without city support.
Biss called Walberg’s letter a “dishonest political attack” and defended his decision not to intervene in the campus unrest, saying he and police assessed that sending officers “might further inflame the situation.”
Instead of receiving support from AIPAC, Biss has accepted $8,250 from J Street, a self-proclaimed “pro-peace, pro-Israel” lobbying organization. However, J Street has come under fire for allegedly not doing enough to combat antisemitism or anti-Israel narratives within liberal political circles. The organization’s leader Jeremy Ben-Ami said he would no longer dispute the claim that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza and that he has been convinced by activists that international courts will successfully prosecute the Jewish state.
In 2024, J Street called on the US government to withhold offensive weapons from Israel, arguing that the United States needs to hold Israel accountable for alleged human rights “violations.”
In September 2025, AIPAC sent an email to supporters decrying Biss and Abughazaleh as “dangerous detractors” to the group’s mission.
AIPAC has thrown its weight behind Fine, despite her longshot candidacy. A recently formed PAC reportedly backed by AIPAC has started spending six-figure sums on ads supporting Fine’s candidacy. The new ad-buy came after her campaign last year received about $300,000 from over 270 donors linked to AIPAC, according to campaign finance records viewed by local news outlet Evanston Now.
Fine has strategically positioned herself as the most pro-Israel candidate in the race.
“Anybody who is supporting me in my campaign is supporting a woman who yes, believes in the existence of Israel, yes believes in freedom and justice for all,” Fine said. “But also, anybody who’s investing in my campaign is investing in a 13-year record of someone who stood up to the biggest bullies in Springfield.”
In the two years following the breakout of the Israel-Hamas war, the role of AIPAC in American politics has become increasingly scrutinized. Fallacious conspiracy theories surrounding the group’s origins and influence over US politicians have become increasingly mainstreamed, causing many Democrats to either return or preemptively reject support and funding from the group. Moreover, the increasing toxicity of AIPAC within Democratic circles comes as party voters have soured on Israel.
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University of Maryland Student Gov’t Teams Up With Anti-Zionist Group to Pass 4th Anti-Israel Resolution This Year
University of Maryland, College Park’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter honoring Hamas terrorists, whom it called “our martyrs,” on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. Photo: Screenshot
The University of Maryland, College Park’s student government on Wednesday passed its fourth anti-Israel resolution in just this academic year alone, cementing a governing partnership with the extremist group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
Every member of the Student Government Association (SGA), notwithstanding one who abstained, supported the latest measure with a voting tally of 19-0-1, The Algemeiner has learned from sources close to the situation.
Previous resolutions, which include one passed on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, amassed as many as 28 votes but failed to achieve unanimous approval.
The latest measure calls on the school to divest from a range of defense contractors for working with Israel in accordance with the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate the world’s lone Jewish state on the international stage as the first step toward its elimination. Leaders of the movement have repeatedly stated their goal is to destroy Israel.
“[The University of Maryland’s] investments may include companies such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Elbit Systems, Caterpillar Inc, and RTX Corp, all companies that in some form or another, supply weapons, surveillance, technology, or infrastructure used in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and have been linked to human right’s violations in other regions,” the resolution states, seemingly admitting that its supporters are not certain of the contents of the university’s investment portfolio. “This framework shall apply to the investment of all USM-controlled funds subject to Maryland law.”
October’s Yom Kippur vote, which Jewish students could not attend, accused Israel of “apartheid and occupation.”
Other resolutions at the University of Maryland (UMD) lodged discredited claims of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” against Israel, parroting atrocity propaganda confected by Hamas to influence the public’s perception of the war in Gaza prompted by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
In the days leading up to Wednesday’s vote, Jewish and Christian groups castigated the student government for what they described as being so easily captured by extremists who flagrantly signal their contempt for Jews by perpetrating hate incidents and using Jewish holidays as an occasion for promoting the destruction of the Jewish state.
“As a movement, we are trying to combat antisemitism. It is difficult when we have groups like BDS and UMD’s own student government outwardly discriminating against Jewish students,” said Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and Students Supporting Israel (SSI) in a joint statement, posted on the Instagram social media platform, on Saturday. “They have screamed at Jewish students and cornered them in rooms until police had to get involved. UMD’s student government is not interested in dialogue. They tell their followers not to speak with Israelis.”
They continued, “This form of extremism is hateful and discriminatory. We are calling for awareness and action from UMD to put an end to this.”
On Thursday, SSI president Uriel Appel told The Algemeiner, “The only surprising thing about SGA’s blatant attack on Jewish students on our campus is their zealous persistence on the matter.”
UMD, College Park SJP leading Muslim prayers. Photo: Screenshot
The University of Maryland, College Park’s SJP chapter is one of the most radical in the country. After the Oct. 7 attack, it held a “vigil” for Palestinian terrorists and other events which appeared aimed at pitting the Black and Latino communities against Jews. In its public statements, it has rejected a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and called for the destruction of the Jewish state.
“UMD SJP unequivocally states that the Zionist state of Israel has no right to exist,” it said in a statement issued in July 2024. “Beyond being an apartheid state, the system of Israeli apartheid is a symptom of the fact that it is a settler-colonial ethnostate that seeks to use apartheid to facilitate its genocidal intent and ultimate goal of displacing indigenous Palestinians from their homeland.”
Student governments at other major universities are also pushing anti-Israel measures, as antisemitic incidents remain at high levels on campuses across the US.
As reported by The Algemeiner last week, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s (UNL) student government approved a BDS measure pushed by SJP. The student government, facing public scrutiny, ultimately amended the resolution to remove any mention of Israel and rename it the “Divest for Humanity Act.” The measure demanded divestment from armaments manufacturers to block “”complicit in the genocide and atrocities worldwide.” It passed by a wide margin after being doggedly argued against by Jewish students who were subjected to unfounded allegations about links to Israel.
SJP exalted its passing as a victory for its mission to foster a climate in which pro-Israel support in the US is untenable.
The vote came days after a right-wing social media influencer and University of Miami student upbraided her Jewish peers in a tirade in which she denounced them as “disgusting” while accusing rabbis of eating infants.
“Christianity, which says love everyone, meanwhile your Bible says eating someone who is a non-Jew is like eating with an animal. That’s what the Talmud says,” the online influencer, Kaylee Mahony, yelled at members of Students Supporting Israel who had a table at a campus fair held at the University of Miami. “That’s what these people follow.”
She continued, “They think that if you are not a Jew you are an animal. That’s the Talmud. That’s the Talmud.”
The Talmud, a key source of Jewish law, tradition, and theology, is often misrepresented by antisemitic agitators in an effort to malign the Jewish people and their religion.
Mahony can also be heard in video of the incident telling one of the “Because you’re disgusting. It’s disgusting.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.