Jan Augustus Gies (Dutch pronunciation: [jɑŋ ˈɣis];[a] 18 August 1905 – 26 January 1993) was a member of the Dutch Resistance who, with his wife, Miep, helped hide Anne Frank, her sister Margot, their parents Otto and Edith, the van Pels family, and Fritz Pfeffer from Nazi persecution during the occupation of the Netherlands by aiding them as they resided in the Secret Annex.

Gies (also known as Henk van Santen in "Het Achterhuis", known in English as The Diary of Anne Frank) was born and raised in Amsterdam's south side.

Later that year, Gies was appointed the nominal director of Otto Frank's company after Frank was forced to resign from the board under the newly introduced Nazi laws which forbade Jews to hold directorships, and from then on, the company traded under the name Gies & Co.[citation needed] As the persecution of Amsterdam's Jewish population intensified, he dedicated himself to assisting Jews and others escape by obtaining illegal ration cards for food, finding them hiding places, and securing British newspapers free from Nazi propaganda.

[1] In addition to their concealment of the Frank and van Pels families and of Fritz Pfeffer at the Prinsengracht, Miep and Jan also took in a student, who had refused to sign a Nazi oath.

[1] Following the arrest and deportation of the hidden families in August 1944, Miep, just like the younger secretary Bep Voskuijl, rescued parts of the diaries and other manuscripts of Anne Frank from the hiding place before it was ransacked by the Dutch secret police.