The Bravest Voices: A Memoir of Two Sisters' Heroism During the Nazi Era

by Ida Cook

Book Overview

This timeless memoir documents two sisters' bravery leading up to WWII--a singular historical account that shines a light on one of humanity's darkest hours.

Ida and Louise Cook are two ordinary Englishwomen, seemingly destined never to stray from their quiet London suburb and comfortable jobs--Ida as a budding romance novelist and Louise as a civil service typist. But in 1923, a chance hearing of an aria from Madame Butterfly sparked a passion for opera in the sisters that led to the formation of friendships with some of Europe's leading singers and their network, many of them Jewish. As the Nazis rose to power, Ida and Louise began working with the opera world's insiders to save members of the community from persecution and death. Through ingenuity, thrift and bottomless goodwill, the sisters eluded the suspicion of the Nazis and helped secure safe passage for dozens of refugees. No one would have predicted such daring lives for Ida and Louise Cook--but that underestimation is exactly how they were able to save lives.

First published in 1950, Ida's memoir of the adventures she and Louise shared remains as fresh, vital and entertaining as the woman who wrote it, and is a moving testament to the extraordinary acts of courage by two everyday heroes.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0778388093
• ISBN13: 9780778388098
• Release Date: January 2021
• Publisher: Park Row
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Safe Passage

I found it touching and in also overwhelming. I am a holocaust survivor from Vienna. I was 9 years old and we had reached Brussels. My mother received a visa as a housekeeper but 50 pounds were needed for me to go with her. Someone at the British Consulate paid so I could go. We arrived in England 3 weeks before the war started. The book brought bad but also wonderful memories back.The book was so immediate for me. They both are real true heroines and Christians. I wish I had known them. If you wish to have a true picture of that time and place read this outstanding book.

vissi d'amore

This book combines a significant bit of history with wonderful writing. It deserves a wide readership, but for those of us who have a specific interest in opera, especially opera's past (e.g., Ponselle, Farrar, Pinza, etc.) and/or were born before rock"n" roll (i.e., before 1951) it is a must read. The story is gritty; the prose is lilting; and the pathos is heartrending. If this book doesn't bring tears of joy and sadness to your eyes then courage, and poignance, and tragedy, and beauty, and the dogged spirit of human determination and goodness don't exist in this world. Approximately one-third of the book documents, in perfectly pitched prose, the role that the Cook sisters played in rescuing refugees, mostly Jews, from Europe prior to the outbreak of war in 1939. [In 1965 the two opera-loving Brits were awarded the honor of Righteous Among the Nations from the Yad Vashem for the lives they saved.] It seems almost an understatement to say, paraphrasing Albert Camus, that in the midst of winter these two sisters were an invincible summer.

Safe Passage

Fascinating book, but more meaningful if you still remember the opera stars of yestertear. The fact that these two women saved the lives of so many people would be of interest to everyone who is a student of the Holocaust.

This is a must have book

I love this book. I am savoring every word, every phrase. Ida Cook and her sister Louise were truly saints of our time and the book, as written by Ida, is a gem. The detail, the humanity, the amazing rescue work that they did --- everything is recounted in a lovely writing style. I truly recommend this book.

The Stars

Ida Cook and her sister Louise were minor British civil servants earning only 2 or 3 pounds a week in the 1920s when they heard their first operatic recording, and they immediately and forever fell in love. The "stars" they followed were opera stars. Saving a pound a week for two years, they financed their first passage to America to hear the magnificent Amelita Galli-Curci at the old Met in New York, after their unbounded passion for opera had prompted Galli-Curci to offer them tickets whenever they should manage to get there. Thus began their lifelong seemingly deep and respectful friendships with dozens of opera singers, among them Rosa Ponselle, Ezio Pinza, and later Maria Callas. The book tells of their queuing from early morning at Covent Garden for the then-unreserved gallery seats for the two-month-long opera season, of their "snapping" the stars and then presenting them with photographs in return for signatures on their own copies. Friendship with the Austrian conductor Clemens Krauss and his wife, the Rumanian opera singer Viorica Ursuleac, led them in the mid-1930s into assisting Jews to leave Germany. By then, Ida was penning romantic novels under the name of Mary Burchell for the publisher Mills & Boon and earning a little more than her civil service salary, but between them they still had not enough funds to be guaranteeing the livelihoods of many fleeing Jews, who were restricted entry to Britain to only those who could find a guarantor until the immigration quotas of their destination countries would allow them to move on. But the pogroms of Nazi Germany would not wait for quotas. So Ida and Louise worked to pool the smaller sums they could raise from their friends, from church groups, from schoolchildren, from many people who had no prospect of helping except for the pooling of their resources. And the sisters traveled back and forth to Germany, working on their cases, rescuing in the end 29 people who would otherwise have joined the 6 million. They brought out jewelry and fur coats for those who were forbidden to flee the country with nothing more than a few dollars worth of belongings. In later years, the Committee for the Righteous in Israel recognized them for their compassionate work.