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http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-38732779
I ran across this lovely story on the BBC for Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Ida and Louise Cook were unmarried adult sisters living with their parents in London in the 1930s (very common at the time, since so many men had died in the First World War). They worked as typists, and Ida had discovered a talent for writing romance novels (under a pseudonym), which supported them.
They were also fans of opera. It was their great passion. They would travel to see performances, write to stars and hang around stage doors for autographs.
In 1934 the sisters visited the Salzbug Festival in Germany, where they met and befriended conductor and impresario Clemens Krauss. Krauss' wife, soprano Viorica Ursuleac, told the Cook sisters about the frightening restrictions German and Austrian Jews were under and asked them to look after the safety of a friend of hers in London.
The Cooks did not consider themselves particularly heroic or brave.
Jews in Germany were at that time allowed to leave the country, but they were not allowed to take any money or valuables with them.
Britain would accept refugees, but only if they had a job waiting or enough wealth to support themselves.
The combination of these two policies left German Jews in a cruel paradox. They could leave, but only penniless and destitute. And penniless and destitute, few places would take them in.
The sisters began discreetly asking around, and they began to use their opera travels as cover for smuggling missions.
Ida and Louise would travel to Germany plainly dressed and coatless. They would meet Jews hoping to flee to Britain at the opera and collect their valuables. A couple of days later they would leave the country -- at carefully different border crossings so the border guards wouldn't remember them -- dripping with fur coats and travel cases of jewelry.
In London the wealth would be waiting for its owners, who could now be accepted as refugees.
The sisters also persuaded people in Britain to offer jobs and financial guarantees to help the refugees out.
If challenged at the German border crossings the sisters had a loopy cover story straight out of Agatha Christie.
When the Nazis grew suspicious at their frequent visits the sisters contacted Krauss, now director of the Munich Opera House. Krauss arranged that certain performances would be held in certain cities at certain times so that the sisters could meet their Jewish contacts while visiting the opera.
Between 1934 and 1939 Ida and Louise Cook helped 29 people flee Nazi persecution by walking past the Nazi border guards loaded with their wealth.
The sisters were given the Righteous Among the Nations honour from the state of Israel in 1965.
I ran across this lovely story on the BBC for Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Ida and Louise Cook were unmarried adult sisters living with their parents in London in the 1930s (very common at the time, since so many men had died in the First World War). They worked as typists, and Ida had discovered a talent for writing romance novels (under a pseudonym), which supported them.
They were also fans of opera. It was their great passion. They would travel to see performances, write to stars and hang around stage doors for autographs.
In 1934 the sisters visited the Salzbug Festival in Germany, where they met and befriended conductor and impresario Clemens Krauss. Krauss' wife, soprano Viorica Ursuleac, told the Cook sisters about the frightening restrictions German and Austrian Jews were under and asked them to look after the safety of a friend of hers in London.
The Cooks did not consider themselves particularly heroic or brave.
Jews in Germany were at that time allowed to leave the country, but they were not allowed to take any money or valuables with them.
Britain would accept refugees, but only if they had a job waiting or enough wealth to support themselves.
The combination of these two policies left German Jews in a cruel paradox. They could leave, but only penniless and destitute. And penniless and destitute, few places would take them in.
The sisters began discreetly asking around, and they began to use their opera travels as cover for smuggling missions.
Ida and Louise would travel to Germany plainly dressed and coatless. They would meet Jews hoping to flee to Britain at the opera and collect their valuables. A couple of days later they would leave the country -- at carefully different border crossings so the border guards wouldn't remember them -- dripping with fur coats and travel cases of jewelry.
In London the wealth would be waiting for its owners, who could now be accepted as refugees.
The sisters also persuaded people in Britain to offer jobs and financial guarantees to help the refugees out.
If challenged at the German border crossings the sisters had a loopy cover story straight out of Agatha Christie.
When the Nazis grew suspicious at their frequent visits the sisters contacted Krauss, now director of the Munich Opera House. Krauss arranged that certain performances would be held in certain cities at certain times so that the sisters could meet their Jewish contacts while visiting the opera.
Between 1934 and 1939 Ida and Louise Cook helped 29 people flee Nazi persecution by walking past the Nazi border guards loaded with their wealth.
The sisters were given the Righteous Among the Nations honour from the state of Israel in 1965.
