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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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The handwriting analysis that convicted Alfred Dreyfus is for sale
The false conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, a captain in the French military, for treason against France in 1894 is remembered by historians as a flashpoint of antisemitism in modern history. It spread a renewed hatred and suspicion of Jews throughout French society, birthed Emile Zola’s famous J’accuse and spurred early Zionists like Theodore Herzl, who referenced the Dreyfus affair as proof that Jews could never be safe in Europe.
The case turned on a document known as the bordereau, a handwritten memo offering French military secrets to the Germans. But the handwriting didn’t resemble Dreyfus’ script. So, key to the case was the testimony of a celebrated handwriting expert, Etienne Charavay, whose analysis confirmed a theory that the bordereau was an example of “autoforgery,” a convoluted theory that Dreyfus was purposefully disguising his handwriting, yet it could still be identified as his — in short, that the lack of resemblance between the handwriting somehow was further proof of Dreyfus’ guilt.
However far-fetched, the theory that Charavay’s report advanced convicted Dreyfus in the public eye as well as in court. Now, those papers — tracings of Dreyfus’ writing alongside the script from the bordereau, an analysis of letter shapes and the expert report — are for sale by the Manhattan Rare Book Company at the Antiquarian Book Fair this week for the low price of $175,000. They are all the more interesting for the fact that Charavay emotionally recanted his testimony against Dreyfus several years after the trial, in 1899.
When I went to see the documents for myself at the fair, I found myself applying my own — admittedly amateur — handwriting analysis to the letters. In the first few pages of the dossier, composed of intact only slightly yellowed paper, Charavay outlines the differences between Dreyfus’ hand and the bordereau document, not similarities. There, his writing seems assured; it is unfailingly neat without corrections or ink marks.
But as Charavay turns to the similarities between the letters, arguing that there are, in fact, particular letters that bear a resemblance to those in the bordereau, he begins to repeatedly cross out lines and make cramped corrections. There are lines of analysis that look almost mathematical, comparing individual letters in quasi-equations. The conclusion of the report has almost as many lines crossed out as there are cleanly written.
When I spoke with Michael DiRuggiero, the owner of Manhattan Rare Books, and his colleague Jeremy O’Connor, both marveled repeatedly at the upside-down logic, which violates a cardinal sin of identifying writing. “As professionals who deal with manuscripts, you can’t argue from differences back to validating manuscripts,” O’Connor said. “He’s working his way back from a conclusion that the handwriting is not Dreyfus’.”
It’s hard to know for sure why exactly the French government was so set on convicting Dreyfus, or what pressures were operating on Charavay when he wrote his much-edited report.
“I don’t know if he believed it or if he’s trying to make an argument that he doesn’t believe,” DiRuggiero said. “I don’t know if that can ever be known, what’s in his head, but the French government wanted a scapegoat.”
Handwritten drama
Dreyfus’ handwriting and that in the bordereau were so obviously different that, before Charavay entered the case, there were many attempts to get Dreyfus to produce the same script. Another officer in the army, Major Mercier du Paty de Clam, tasked with the case, attempted to trick Dreyfus into writing out many of the same sentences as in the bordereau in hopes of reproducing the letters, without luck.
Initially, an expert in signatures at a bank was consulted on the handwriting in the bordereau; he said it appeared “spontaneous,” which is to say written fluidly and freely, an idea that would seem to contradict the later autoforgery theory. (Charavay initially concurred with the analysis of a spontaneous hand.) He pointed out many differences and concluded Dreyfus did not write the traitorous note.
But then a French police officer, Alphonse Bertillon — a forensic expert but not in handwriting — originated the “self forgery” theory, putting forth a report concluding that the writing was Dreyfus’. His testimony was not enough, but it influenced the three people consulted next, including Charavay.
Charavay had risen to a sort of celebrity in France a few years before the Dreyfus trial, when he proved that thousands of letters a collector had bought — including supposed writings from Julius Caesar and Mary Magdalene — were all forgeries. He used a newly scientific form of analysis, comparing individual letter shapes and fluidity with unprecedented precision.
At the time, DiRuggiero told me, science was increasingly being brought to bear in prosecutions. Forensics, including fingerprinting, was a new and buzzy frontier. Charavay’s advances in analysis brought him fame and credibility, as did his titles: the highest form of academic paleographic credential and an appointment as the premier forensic document specialist in the country.
“Without Charavay’s credential, the auto forgery theory is just a nutty theory,” said DiRuggiero. With it, however, papers ran with the story, including a piece in the antisemitic paper La Libre Parole, which had long campaigned against Jews in the French army due to their supposedly treasonous nature. With this, the case became a national controversy.
“If you’re told that’s probably Dreyfus’s hand and you pick up a newspaper and that’s what you’re told,” said DiRuggiero, “the public will just believe that.”
As time after the conviction continued, the public — which had divided into Dreyfusard and anti-Dreyfusard camps — continued to debate the case, with prominent intellectuals including Zola and the novelist Anatole France defending Dreyfus’ innocence. Knowledge of the thin evidence began to disseminate, with Zola specifically castigating several of the handwriting experts by name.
Zola noted their reports were “deceitful and fraudulent, unless a medical examination finds them to be suffering from a condition that impairs their eyesight and judgement.” Charavay, however, was not named, a fact O’Connor hypothesized may have been because he was friends with France and may have expressed his doubts in private, doubts France may have relayed to Zola.
In any case, Charavay emotionally recanted his testimony at Dreyfus’ retrial in 1899, just a year after J’accuse…! Dreyfus himself noted the speech in his memoirs. But it wasn’t enough. Though the real perpetrator, Ferdinand Esterhazy, had fled to England and confessed to journalist Rachel Sassoon Beer, Dreyfus was reconvicted. Eventually, he pled guilty in exchange for a pardon; it took several more years for him to be legally exonerated and reinstated in the army.
We will never be sure why Charavay testified against Dreyfus in the first place. Zola wrote in J’accuse…! that one of the handwriting experts “faced military pressure because he dared to come to a conclusion other than the desired one.” Perhaps Charavay bowed to the same. Based on the overwriting, he struggled to make the pivotal argument to himself.
What we know for sure, however, is that the papers are legitimate — DiRuggiero and O’Connor would never make the same mistakes Charavay did. When I asked them how they validated the dossier, they laughed. “There’s no question that it’s his handwriting,” DiRuggiero said.
The post The handwriting analysis that convicted Alfred Dreyfus is for sale appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel’s Eurovision Delegation Departs for Austria Led by Singer Noam Bettan
Noam Bettan, Israel’s representative for the Eurovision Song Contest 2026, poses in this undated handout photo. Photo: Courtesy of Kan, Timor Elmalach/Handout via REUTERS
The Israeli delegation for the 70th Eurovision Song Contest, led by Israel’s representative in the competition Noam Bettan, departed the Jewish state on Friday morning and traveled to Austria for the annual event taking place this month.
Israel’s national airline El Al shared photos on Facebook of Bettan aboard the plane taking him to Vienna, where he will compete in the Eurovision with his original song “Michelle.” The song features lyrics in Hebrew, French, and English. Bettan, 27, will perform the track at the Eurovision with five dancers on stage, Israel’s national broadcaster Kan announced.
The Ra’anana native, whose parents are French, will represent his home country in the Eurovision this year after winning the latest season of the Israeli televised singing competition “Hakochav Haba” (“The Next Star”) in January.
“I am very happy and excited to represent our beautiful country in the biggest music competition in Europe, on the biggest stage in the world,” Bettan said before taking off on Friday morning, as reported by Kan. “I am coming with an open heart, and I want to give all the light and love I receive from everyone, back to the whole world … We have given our souls to bring the most amazing performance possible on stage with lots of surprises. There is going to be great joy on stage! It is a great privilege and responsibility, and I will do everything to represent with honor.”
El Al CEO Levi Halevi said he is confident Bettan will be successful in the competition. “Noam is going to represent us in a challenging time when it is of great significance to represent the country with honor around the world,” he added.
The first semi-finals for the Eurovision, in which Bettan will perform, will take place on May 12, followed by another semi-final on May 14. The grand final will be held on May 16.
Thirty-five countries are participating from around the world. Ireland, Slovenia, and Spain have announced they will not air the 70th Eurovision Song Contest or compete because of Israel’s participation. Iceland and the Netherlands will also not compete in the Eurovision this year due to Israel’s inclusion, but they will broadcast the competition.
Eurovision Song Contest Asia will launch in November 2026 and will be hosted in Bangkok, Thailand.
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Albanian Prime Minister Promotes Kanye West’s Upcoming Concert in New 60,000-Seat Stadium
Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. Photo: BANG Showbiz via Reuters Connect
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama confirmed on Thursday an upcoming concert in the country by Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, despite a number of the rapper’s previous shows being canceled across Europe because of his past antisemitic behavior.
Rama shared a video on Facebook that features footage of the Grammy winner during his previous concerts, along with a message that announces the date of the concert in Tirana, Albania. The “Flashing Lights” singer will perform one night only on July 11.
The Yeezy founder will also reportedly have a temporary venue built for him in the city that will be called “Eagle Stadium.” It is expected to hold approximately 60,000 people and will be located near the Tirana-Durra axis, Albania’s Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Sports Blendi Gonxhja confirmed in a Facebook post, which was also shared on the ministry’s official Facebook page.
The Ministry of Culture noted that the concert will be paid for through ticket sales, but some partnered institutions will “facilitate” its progress, according to BalkanInsight.
“In every aspect, it is our obligation to welcome and facilitate the development of such events that bring numerous benefits to tourism and the economy,” the ministry reportedly said. It added that the concert “will have an extraordinary impact on the promotion of tourism and the local economy.”
The United Kingdom, France, Poland, and Switzerland have all recently canceled Ye’s concerts amid controversy over his past antisemitic actions and comments, which include selling T-shirts that feature a Nazi swastika, expressing admiration for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, releasing a song titled “Heil Hitler,” and posting several antisemitic comments about Jews on X. Australia banned Ye from entering the country last year.
Italy is still set to have Ye headline its Hellwatt Festival in July, but Pina Picierno, vice president of the European Parliament and senior member of Italy’s Democratic Party, said the government should take action to prevent the concert from taking place. “The United Kingdom denied the visa. France effectively prevented the Marseille concert. Italy, meanwhile, is just staying idle with 68,000 tickets sold, as if nothing had happened,” Picierno told the local newspaper La Gazzetta di Reggio.
Ye apologized for his antisemitic and pro-Nazi comments in January in an advert in the Wall Street Journal. He attributed his offensive behavior to manic episodes related to untreated bipolar disorder and declared, “I am not a Nazi or an antisemite.”
As part of his world tour, Ye is set to perform this summer in India, Turkey, The Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal.