In December 1920, Miep Gies came to The Netherlands. Her birth name was Hermine Santrouschitz and she came here from Vienna, the capital of Austria. She was 11 years old when her parents sent her to the Netherlands to recover from tuberculosis and malnutrition. She was taken in by a foster family in Leiden. She felt very much at home and with the consent of her biological parents, she stayed on in the Netherlands.
Poverty and hunger in Vienna: Miep Gies comes to the Netherlands
Dec. 1, 1920 Vienna
Austria came into being after the Austrian-Hungarian Empire fell apart at the end of the First World War. It took a lot of effort to overcome the hardships of the war. When there was a famine in Vienna, foster families in England, France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands took in hungry and sick children. The people who stayed behind received help from American aid organisations.
