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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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Pressure Mounts on UK Government to Ban Kanye West After Festival Backlash
Rapper Kanye West holds his first rally in support of his presidential bid in North Charleston, South Carolina, US, July 19, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Randall Hill
The British government was under growing pressure on Monday to bar US rapper Kanye West from entering the country after he was named as the headline act for the Wireless Festival of rap and hip-hop music set for July.
West, now known as Ye, has been criticized in the past for antisemitic remarks and celebration of Nazism, which have led on several occasions to his social media accounts, including X, being barred.
The decision to book Ye prompted several companies to pull their sponsorship of the festival, while the main opposition Conservative Party wrote to Home Secretary [interior minister] Shabana Mahmood urging her to ban him from coming to Britain.
Asked by Reuters for comment, a Home Office source said ministers were currently reviewing his permission to enter the country.
The Home Office does not usually comment on individual cases, but Mahmood has powers to personally request Ye to be excluded from the UK. In January, the department revoked the Electronic Travel Authorization of Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a Dutch far-right activist for spreading false information.
Festival organizers and Ye’s representative did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The Jewish Leadership Council last week condemned the organizers for booking Ye after a rise in attacks on Jewish people and Jewish targets.
‘DEEPLY CONCERNING’
Prime Minister Keir Starmer also described as “deeply concerning” the decision to book Ye for the London festival.
“Antisemitism in any form is abhorrent and must be confronted firmly wherever it appears,” Starmer said in comments first reported by the Sun on Sunday.
“Everyone has a responsibility to ensure Britain is a place where Jewish people feel safe and secure.”
A spokesperson for London mayor Sadiq Khan said the rapper’s comments did not reflect the city’s values and that the decision had been made by festival organizers.
Australia cancelled the rapper’s visa last July after he released “Heil Hitler,” a song promoting Nazism. The ban came a few months after Ye advertised a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website.
Ye took a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal in January to apologize for his antisemitic remarks, attributing his behavior to an undiagnosed brain injury and an untreated bipolar disorder. He also apologized for his past expressions of admiration for Adolf Hitler and use of swastika imagery.
The 48-year-old has not performed in Britain since he headlined Glastonbury in 2015.
Drinks companies Diageo and Pepsi, a long-running sponsor, said they had withdrawn their support for the Wireless event over the decision to invite Ye. Pepsi-owner PepsiCo also confirmed its Rockstar Energy brand had pulled its sponsorship.
A spokesperson for PayPal told Reuters on Monday its branding would not appear in any future Wireless festival promotional materials.
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Iran Rejects Ceasefire as Deadline Nears on Trump ‘Hell’ Ultimatum
President Donald Trump arrives from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. Photo: Alex Brandon/Pool via REUTERS
Iran said on Monday it wanted a lasting end to the war with the US and Israel, and pushed back against pressure to swiftly reopen the Strait of Hormuz under a temporary ceasefire as the Americans and the Iranians weighed a framework plan to cease their five‑week-old conflict.
Iran conveyed its response to the US proposal for ending the war to Pakistan, rejecting a ceasefire and emphasizing the necessity of a permanent end to the war, the official IRNA news agency said on Monday. The Iranian response consisted of 10 clauses, including an end to conflicts in the region, a protocol for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, lifting of sanctions, and reconstruction, the agency added.
President Donald Trump, who has threatened to rain “hell” on Tehran if it did not make a deal by 8 pm EDT Tuesday (midnight GMT) to open the vital route for global energy supplies, rejected the Iranian proposal on Monday and said his deadline was final.
“They made a proposal, and it’s a significant proposal. It’s a significant step. It’s not good enough,” Trump told reporters at an annual White House Easter event, referring to Iran.
Trump, who had extended his initial deadline, gave no indication he would do so again.
“Highly unlikely. They’ve had plenty of time. In fact, they asked for seven days. I said, I’m going to give you 10. But at the end of 10, all hell’s going to break out if you don’t get there,” he said.
Iran responded to US and Israeli attacks in February by effectively closing Hormuz, a conduit for about a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supply. The waterway’s stranglehold on the global economy has proved a powerful Iranian bargaining chip and on Monday it showed reluctance to relinquish it too easily.
The Pakistani-brokered framework for ending the war emerged from intense overnight contacts and proposes an immediate ceasefire, followed by talks on a broader peace settlement to be concluded within 15 to 20 days, a source aware of the proposals said on Monday.
Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, was in contact “all night long” with US Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, the source said.
Iran‘s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that Tehran’s demands “should not be interpreted as a sign of compromise, but rather as a reflection of its confidence in defending its positions.” He added that earlier US demands, such as a 15-point plan, were rejected as “excessive.”
CEASEFIRE PROPOSAL ‘ONE OF MANY IDEAS’
Trump later told reporters that Iran could be taken out in one night, “and that night might be tomorrow night,” warning Tehran it had to make a deal by Tuesday night or face the consequences.
“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” he told a White House press conference.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the briefing that the largest volume of strikes since day one of the operation against Iran would take place on Monday and warned Tuesday would have even more.
A White House official told Reuters that the president is considering multiple options for how to proceed but that military operations will continue.
“This is one of many ideas, and [Trump] has not signed off on it. Operation Epic Fury continues,” they said, referring to the US name for the operation against Iran.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 were up 0.5% to $109.60 a barrel at 1545 GMT.
In a post laden with expletives on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, Trump threatened further strikes on Iranian energy and transport infrastructure if Iran failed to make a deal and reopen the Strait by Tuesday.
Anwar Gargash, an adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates, said any settlement must guarantee access through Hormuz. He warned that a deal that failed to rein in Iran’s nuclear program and its missiles and drones would pave the way for “a more dangerous, more volatile Middle East.”
Fresh aerial strikes were reported across the region on Monday, more than five weeks since the US and Israel began pounding Iran in a war that has killed thousands and damaged economies by sending oil prices surging.
Iranian state media said the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence chief, Majid Khademi, has died. Israel on Monday claimed responsibility for his death.
A US-Israeli attack hit the data center at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, damaging infrastructure underpinning the country’s national artificial intelligence platform and thousands of other services, Fars News Agency said on Sunday. According to US and Israeli officials, the Iranian regime has used the facility for military purposes.
ISRAEL VOWS TO DESTROY IRAN‘S INFRASTRUCTURE
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz in a statement issued on Monday threatened to destroy Iran’s infrastructure and hunt down its leaders “one by one.” The Israeli military also said they had targeted Iran‘s air force through a series of strikes on the Bahram, Mehrabad, and Azmayesh airports over the previous night.
Iran said on Monday two of its petrochemical complexes were attacked.
Emergency and firefighting teams brought a blaze under control at the South Pars complex in Asaluyeh, Iran‘s National Petrochemical Company said. No casualties were reported.
An Israeli attack in mid-March on the South Pars gas field that Iran shares with Qatar prompted an escalation in the war, with Iran striking energy targets across the Middle East.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the strike on the petrochemical facility in southern Iran was part of dismantling Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards “money machine.”
“Iran is no longer the same Iran, and Israel is no longer the same Israel. Israel is stronger than ever, and the terrorist regime in Iran is weaker than ever,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
Trump has repeatedly warned Iran he could expand US strikes to include civilian infrastructure, such as power plants and bridges. Critics have said such actions would be war crimes, while others have noted that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an internationally designated terrorist organization, has embedded itself in such infrastructure to enrich itself and fuel its operations.
IRAN CONTINUES TO FIGHT BACK
Iranian weekend strikes on petrochemical facilities and an Israeli-linked vessel in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE underscored the country’s ability to fight back despite Trump‘s repeated claims to have knocked out its missile and drone capabilities.
Israel saw a heavy day of rocket volleys on Monday, with the sounds of sirens and missile interception booms ringing out across the country throughout the day.
Israel’s military told Reuters there had been 20 missile launches from Lebanon and five from Iran during the day. Several of the attacks resulted in impacts, although it was unclear whether it was from falling missile debris or direct strikes. A missile hit Haifa overnight tearing a building apart and killing four under the rubble, taking the death toll in Israel to 23, according to Israel’s ambulance service.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Monday that they also carried out missile and drones attack against Israel.
About 3,540 people have been killed in Iran in the war, including at least 244 children, said US-based rights group HRANA.
Israel has also invaded southern Lebanon and struck Beirut in a fight against Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists, who initially launched rockets at northern Israeli communities, that has become the most violent spillover of the war on Iran.
Lebanon’s heavy casualties include 1,461 killed, including at least 124 children, Lebanese authorities say.
Thirteen US service members have died, and hundreds of others have been wounded.
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Ukraine Missile Maker Targets ‘Game Changer’ Air Defense System by 2027
An employee works with FP-1 long range drone at a production facility of Fire Point company, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in an undisclosed location in Ukraine, April 2, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
Fire Point, maker of Ukraine‘s Flamingo cruise missile, is in talks with European companies to launch a new air defense system by next year, a senior executive told Reuters, creating a low-cost alternative to the increasingly hard-to-get Patriot system.
With governments seeking to defend their skies as the wars in Ukraine and Iran sow global instability, Fire Point’s co-founder and chief designer Denys Shtilierman said it aimed to slash the cost of intercepting a ballistic missile to below $1 million.
Shtilierman also said Fire Point was awaiting government approval for an investment by a Middle Eastern conglomerate that valued the company at $2.5 billion and would open the door to new business opportunities, including low-orbit satellite launches.
Years of know-how gained on the battlefield fighting Russian forces have made Ukraine a leading innovator in low-cost defense tech. With the outbreak of war in the Gulf, Kyiv has leveraged that expertise to sign security agreements with governments across the region.
Many Ukrainian defense firms are now seeking to export their excess capacity and cash in on a global boom in military spending. While the government recently loosened wartime export restrictions, each proposed deal is still subject to stringent checks and state approval.
DEVELOPING AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE PATRIOT SYSTEM
Ukraine and many other Western-allied nations rely heavily on the US-made Patriot system to stop ballistic missiles.
But Patriot missiles are in increasingly short supply amid extensive deployment in the Gulf against Iranian attacks. And Europe’s only anti-ballistic system, the Italo-French SAMP/T, is produced in relatively small numbers.
To bring down a ballistic projectile, the Patriot system – manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin – often requires two or three air defense missiles, each costing several million dollars, Shtilierman said.
“If we can decrease it to less than $1 million, it will be … a game changer in air defense solutions,” he said in an interview. “We plan to intercept the first ballistic missile at the end of 2027.”
Shtilierman declined to name the European companies involved in the discussions to develop the new system but said Fire Point is “deeply interested” in collaboration on radar, missile target-seeking and communications systems – areas where it lacks expertise.
European companies including Weibel, Hensoldt, SAAB, and Thales have good radar solutions, he noted.
Founded after Moscow’s 2022 invasion, Fire Point is Ukraine‘s biggest maker of the long-range drones used in the majority of strikes deep inside Russia.
In recent months, its FP5 long-range cruise missile – commonly known as the Flamingo – has also been used to hit Russian military facilities and arms factories, including a ballistic missile plant nearly 1,400 km (870 miles) inside Russian territory.
Shtilierman said Fire Point was now in the final stages of developing two supersonic ballistic missiles.
The smaller FP-7 missile, with a range of around 300 km, will have its first military deployment “in the close future,” he said, describing it as similar to Lockheed Martin’s ATACMS short-range ballistic system.
The larger FP-9, capable of carrying an 800 kg warhead up to 850 km, is about to enter testing and would place Moscow within range of Ukraine‘s ballistic arsenal, he added.
Shtilierman said strikes on Moscow, which is ringed by some of the world’s most formidable air defenses, would cause a “mass shift in the Russian mind and the mind of top guys in Russia.”
Russia’s defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Fabian Hoffmann, a missile expert and senior researcher at the Norwegian Defense University College, said that, while Russia has experience in successfully downing ATACMS, more widespread use of ballistic missiles could stretch Russian air defenses, already degraded by Ukrainian strikes.
And while Fire Point’s 2027 target for launching a low-cost air defense system was “ambitious,” he said that, beyond Ukraine‘s own military needs, there would be strong demand from governments even if its kill rates per missile were less effective than the Patriot’s.
UAE INVESTMENT COULD START SATELLITE VENTURE
Ukraine‘s anti-monopoly authority has until around October to decide on the proposed $760-million acquisition of a 30% stake in Fire Point by the Middle Eastern investor, Shtilierman said.
Ukrainian media have identified the suitor as Emirati defense firm Edge Group. Edge Group and Ukraine‘s anti-monopoly authorities did not respond to a request for comment.
The investment would be the first step in a project to build a space launch terminal in the UAE, with the aim of eventually establishing a constellation of low-orbit European satellites. Shtilierman said the country’s location next to the Indian Ocean and geographical conditions were favorable for space launches.
“We built a carbon winding machine, which allows us to wind a big solid rocket booster for satellite delivery,” he said, noting the project remained at the conceptual stage although there were already agreements “with a couple of Western companies.”
Regardless of whether the UAE deal proceeds, Shtilierman said Fire Point would not take on further investors until after it had demonstrated success with its missile defense system, which will use the company’s FP7 missile.
Fire Point has, meanwhile, received interest from Gulf states for purchases of its existing drone products and is awaiting approval from Ukraine‘s government to begin exports. Shtilierman said the company has monthly capacity to export up to 2,500 long-range drones.
Exporting the Flamingo missile, however, is much more difficult due to regulatory barriers, he said.
Fire Point says it makes hundreds of long-range strike drones a day, each costing about 50,000 euros ($57,775) to produce, and three Flamingo missiles, at a cost of about 600,000 euros apiece. He acknowledged some “bottleneck” issues with the Flamingo, including with engine production.
Fire Point will increase production of the Flamingo when a new, in-house engine goes into mass production in October and a rocket fuel plant in Denmark comes online later this year, he said. The plant is awaiting two final approvals from Danish authorities.
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