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feather_ghyllEpisode 2 - Welcome to Switzerland
A scary opening where it looked as though Miep was being tortured, when, in fact, she was being seen by a Jewish dentist, who’d heard the Franks had gone to Switzerland. Of course, they hadn’t. Miep was being pulled this way and that, trying to buy food for them and dealing with Anne and Margot’s teenage emotions, while running the company under Mr Frank’s orders. Miep was utterly sympathetic as she got into the habit of lying for the food, but then lied to the Franks about all their furniture being taken away from their apartment. But then, she hadn’t been informed that a whole other family had joined the Franks in the hiding place, meaning more mouths to feed.
Jan was trying to help via his job, lying to colleagues. The couple ended up going to a bookshop where it was rumoured the underground might help with fake ration books. The need for it became obvious as their landlady’s daughter landed on them, having left home because they were Jews. Miep and Jan ended up holed up in the bathroom a lot, because the kids had no sense of privacy, although, as Anne declaimed, the Franks had it worse.
Miep’s redheaded friend wanted to see her, Miep was putting off getting her tooth pulled, and Nazi flags were everywhere, rules were getting tightened, the Dutch people were having to make constant compromises. Miep and Jan witnessed a round-up of Jewish people of all ages. She and Otto had a barney because both had lied to the other, and they agreed to be honest from now on. Fortunately, by the time Miep had come to say that Otto really needed to let the nice Jewish dentist that he’d introduced her to come hide with them, he’d decided they should too. Like the Franks, like everyone, he had to adjust quickly when Miep told him he had leave his office now and not tell his fiancée, nor pack any stuff.
Jan was hauled in by his boss, who’d noticed his ‘clerical discrepancies’, some of which were from trying to get more rations for the Franks and the others. He was expecting the sack, but got invited into the resistance instead. Only he was not allowed to tell Miep.
As there was, for once, nobody but them at home – the daughter and son-in-law had decided to try returning to the countryside and the landlady was out trying to comfort herself. Miep and Jan stopped talking, so there weren’t too many awkward lies. They got interrupted (another recurring motif of the episode) by a knock on the door. The parents had got arrested and an officer had decided to spare the children on the proviso they weren’t there when he came back.
The depiction of the wickedness of the Nazi occupation was clear to see. Miep in mostly serious, capable mode was more sympathetic. The Franks’ high-strung reactions were understandable and human, and far more sympathetic than Miep’s friend and her new boyfriend, who tried to ignore all that was happening around them under the Nazi regime. The fact that the episode ran chronologically and we’d already been introduced to most of the main characters meant that this episode felt more settled.
Episode 3 - Motherland
Miep and Jan had to react to the previous episode’s cliffhanger: what to do about their landlady’s grandchildren, who had been separated from their parents at the station, ominously. Their plight made Miep remember her own traumatic separation from her mother as a child, in a recurring set of flashbacks that informed her reaction to the children and her family. In an attempt to find somewhere for the children to hide, she thought about her adoptive parents, but returning home she found her brother Cas there, worried sick as the Nazis were coming for the Netherlands’ gay men. The irony that he and Miep (born Hermine) were using German as ‘their’ secret language when talking about the Nazi threat so that their parents couldn’t understand was potent. He, a man who’d had a secret life from their parents for so long, accused her of keeping secrets because she was so busy and acting so strangely. Because it was other people’s secrets, she had to lie to him. Her relationship with her favourite brother also influenced her feelings for the little brother and sister she was trying to help.
Jan had an echoing storyline. When he asked about a way to protect the children, his nascent resistance contacts sent him to a gay pub and a potential contact, who insisted on a quid pro quo deal. He sent Jan the social worker to pick up some documents in a drawer in a Jewish family’s flat before the dreaded furniture removals came in. There, Jan found a baby instead, who he had to get out and hand over to a woman at a park. This got him an arrangement to smuggle the children out into the countryside, and do what their uncle (tearing his hair out and feeling guilty for letting down the sister he saw in her children) couldn’t for them.
Of course, it wasn’t straightforward, with their grandmother (digesting the fact that her daughter and son-in-law had probably been sent to a concentration camp) having to let them go ‘too soon’, the children having to dye their hair peroxide blonde and be prepared to renounce their Judaism. Miep was overly emotionally invested because of the echoes with her own past, so when it became apparent at the handover that the siblings would be separated, she almost put a stop to it. Jan had to insist, and the children drove away in separate cars to their unknown futures, hopefully able to live as their grandmother had instructed them to.
As well as all that, Miep was still the regular point of contact for the hidden flatmates, with precocious teenager Anne and her mother having a running fight. Also, there was a rat-faced chap on the doorstep insisting that he had a regular standing meeting with Mr Frank. Where was he? Miep repeated the lies, and eventually got Otto Frank to admit that the chap, a member of the Dutch Nazi party, had been blackmailing him. She would end the episode urging Anne to cut her mother some slack.
There were recurring lies between people who’d never had to lie to each other before. Jan had to be vague about how he’d found these friends of friends who could take the kids somewhere safe, and then had to be blunt that there was much he didn’t know so that he couldn’t reveal the truth if caught and threatened. Miep had to keep secrets from her brother, when she knew his greatest secret, as well as being pressured to have children (certainly by her parents), when she’d decided she didn’t want any, but was responsible for two orphans to a degree, and three teenagers and a whole lot of adults too. It was emotionally dense and complex, as we saw all these helpers and victims and the repressive regime that was making people cruel bullies, and making liars of people who wanted to save the vulnerable (none more so than a baby abandoned in a drawer). For once, the use of modern English ‘Ok, ok, ok’ by everyone resonated.
A scary opening where it looked as though Miep was being tortured, when, in fact, she was being seen by a Jewish dentist, who’d heard the Franks had gone to Switzerland. Of course, they hadn’t. Miep was being pulled this way and that, trying to buy food for them and dealing with Anne and Margot’s teenage emotions, while running the company under Mr Frank’s orders. Miep was utterly sympathetic as she got into the habit of lying for the food, but then lied to the Franks about all their furniture being taken away from their apartment. But then, she hadn’t been informed that a whole other family had joined the Franks in the hiding place, meaning more mouths to feed.
Jan was trying to help via his job, lying to colleagues. The couple ended up going to a bookshop where it was rumoured the underground might help with fake ration books. The need for it became obvious as their landlady’s daughter landed on them, having left home because they were Jews. Miep and Jan ended up holed up in the bathroom a lot, because the kids had no sense of privacy, although, as Anne declaimed, the Franks had it worse.
Miep’s redheaded friend wanted to see her, Miep was putting off getting her tooth pulled, and Nazi flags were everywhere, rules were getting tightened, the Dutch people were having to make constant compromises. Miep and Jan witnessed a round-up of Jewish people of all ages. She and Otto had a barney because both had lied to the other, and they agreed to be honest from now on. Fortunately, by the time Miep had come to say that Otto really needed to let the nice Jewish dentist that he’d introduced her to come hide with them, he’d decided they should too. Like the Franks, like everyone, he had to adjust quickly when Miep told him he had leave his office now and not tell his fiancée, nor pack any stuff.
Jan was hauled in by his boss, who’d noticed his ‘clerical discrepancies’, some of which were from trying to get more rations for the Franks and the others. He was expecting the sack, but got invited into the resistance instead. Only he was not allowed to tell Miep.
As there was, for once, nobody but them at home – the daughter and son-in-law had decided to try returning to the countryside and the landlady was out trying to comfort herself. Miep and Jan stopped talking, so there weren’t too many awkward lies. They got interrupted (another recurring motif of the episode) by a knock on the door. The parents had got arrested and an officer had decided to spare the children on the proviso they weren’t there when he came back.
The depiction of the wickedness of the Nazi occupation was clear to see. Miep in mostly serious, capable mode was more sympathetic. The Franks’ high-strung reactions were understandable and human, and far more sympathetic than Miep’s friend and her new boyfriend, who tried to ignore all that was happening around them under the Nazi regime. The fact that the episode ran chronologically and we’d already been introduced to most of the main characters meant that this episode felt more settled.
Episode 3 - Motherland
Miep and Jan had to react to the previous episode’s cliffhanger: what to do about their landlady’s grandchildren, who had been separated from their parents at the station, ominously. Their plight made Miep remember her own traumatic separation from her mother as a child, in a recurring set of flashbacks that informed her reaction to the children and her family. In an attempt to find somewhere for the children to hide, she thought about her adoptive parents, but returning home she found her brother Cas there, worried sick as the Nazis were coming for the Netherlands’ gay men. The irony that he and Miep (born Hermine) were using German as ‘their’ secret language when talking about the Nazi threat so that their parents couldn’t understand was potent. He, a man who’d had a secret life from their parents for so long, accused her of keeping secrets because she was so busy and acting so strangely. Because it was other people’s secrets, she had to lie to him. Her relationship with her favourite brother also influenced her feelings for the little brother and sister she was trying to help.
Jan had an echoing storyline. When he asked about a way to protect the children, his nascent resistance contacts sent him to a gay pub and a potential contact, who insisted on a quid pro quo deal. He sent Jan the social worker to pick up some documents in a drawer in a Jewish family’s flat before the dreaded furniture removals came in. There, Jan found a baby instead, who he had to get out and hand over to a woman at a park. This got him an arrangement to smuggle the children out into the countryside, and do what their uncle (tearing his hair out and feeling guilty for letting down the sister he saw in her children) couldn’t for them.
Of course, it wasn’t straightforward, with their grandmother (digesting the fact that her daughter and son-in-law had probably been sent to a concentration camp) having to let them go ‘too soon’, the children having to dye their hair peroxide blonde and be prepared to renounce their Judaism. Miep was overly emotionally invested because of the echoes with her own past, so when it became apparent at the handover that the siblings would be separated, she almost put a stop to it. Jan had to insist, and the children drove away in separate cars to their unknown futures, hopefully able to live as their grandmother had instructed them to.
As well as all that, Miep was still the regular point of contact for the hidden flatmates, with precocious teenager Anne and her mother having a running fight. Also, there was a rat-faced chap on the doorstep insisting that he had a regular standing meeting with Mr Frank. Where was he? Miep repeated the lies, and eventually got Otto Frank to admit that the chap, a member of the Dutch Nazi party, had been blackmailing him. She would end the episode urging Anne to cut her mother some slack.
There were recurring lies between people who’d never had to lie to each other before. Jan had to be vague about how he’d found these friends of friends who could take the kids somewhere safe, and then had to be blunt that there was much he didn’t know so that he couldn’t reveal the truth if caught and threatened. Miep had to keep secrets from her brother, when she knew his greatest secret, as well as being pressured to have children (certainly by her parents), when she’d decided she didn’t want any, but was responsible for two orphans to a degree, and three teenagers and a whole lot of adults too. It was emotionally dense and complex, as we saw all these helpers and victims and the repressive regime that was making people cruel bullies, and making liars of people who wanted to save the vulnerable (none more so than a baby abandoned in a drawer). For once, the use of modern English ‘Ok, ok, ok’ by everyone resonated.
