First Look: 'A Small Light' Portrays the Heroic Woman Who Hid Anne Frank's Family — and Preserved Her Story

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo: Disney+

To mark the start ofHanukkahPEOPLE has an exclusive First Look at National Geographic’s upcoming limited seriesA Small Light.

The photo showsMiep Gies(Bel Powley), her husband Jan (Joe Cole), Anne Frank (Billie Boullet) and her family — including dad Otto (Liev Schreiber), sister Margot (Ashley Brooke) and mom Edith (Amira Casar) — the van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer (Noah Taylor) celebrating the Festival of Lights while hiding away in the secret annex.

For the next two years, Miep, Jan and several other brave community members watched over the eight people hiding in the annex. Miep ultimately foundAnne’s diaryand preserved it so that she and Otto could later share it with the world.

Werner Baum/picture alliance/Getty

The series titleA Small Lightcomes from something Miep said late in her life: “I don’t like being called a hero because no one should ever think you have to be special to help others. Even an ordinary secretary or a housewife or a teenager can turn on a small light in a dark room.”

Miep, born Hermine Santrouschitz to an underprivileged family in Vienna, headed to the Netherlands at 11 years old to live with a foster family under better conditions. Miep stayed in the Netherlands to begin her career, meeting her future husband Jan at her first job before accepting an opportunity with Otto.

Universal History Archive/UIG/Shutterstock

Miep received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, along with the Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan. In 1995, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands knighted Miep in the Order of Orange-Nassau. Miep died in January 2010, just one month shy of her 101st birthday.

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A Small Lightpremieres this spring on National Geographic and Disney+.

source: people.com