Safe Passage: The Remarkable True Story of Two Sisters Who Rescued Jews from the Nazis

Cook, Ida

ISBN 10: 0373892012 / ISBN 13: 9780373892013

Published by Harlequin, 2008

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 0373892012-4-37105898

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Safe Passage: The Remarkable True Story of Two Sisters Who Rescued Jews from the Nazis
• Publisher: Harlequin
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0373892012
• ISBN 13: 9780373892013
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: Fair
• Weight: 8 ounces

About this title

Synopsis

Gala opera evenings. Sudden wealth and fame. Dangerous undercover missions into the heart of Nazi Germany. Standing up to the perils of the Blitz. No one would have predicted such glamorous and daring lives for Ida and Louise Cook—two decidedly ordinary Englishwomen who came of age between the wars and seemed destined never to stray from their quiet London suburb and comfortable civil service jobs. But in 1923 a chance hearing of an aria from Madame Butterfly sparked a passion in the sisters that became a vehicle for both their greatest happiness and the rescue of dozens of Jews facing persecution and death.

Safe Passage is one of the most unusual and inspiring accounts to come out of the cataclysm of World War II. 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. The Cook sisters' zest for life and genuine "goodness" shines through every page and explains why the leading opera singers of their day befriended and loved them. Even when Ida began to earn thousands as a successful romance novelist, the sisters never departed from their homespun virtues of thrift, hard work, self-sacrifice and unwavering moral conviction. They sewed their own clothes, traveled third class, bought the cheapest tickets during opera season and directed every spare resource, as well as their own considerable courage and ingenuity, toward saving as many people as they could from Hitler's death camps.

Uplifting and utterly charming, Safe Passage is moving testimony to all that can be achieved when conscience and compassion are applied to a collapsing world.

About the Author

Ida Cook (1904-1986), writing as Mary Burchell, authored more than 120 books over the course of five decades. A lifelong devotee of opera, she counted Amelita Galli-Curci, Rosa Ponselle and Maria Callas among her close friends. In 1965, together with her sister Louise, she was awarded the honor or Righteous Among Nations from the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Authority in Jerusalem.