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

Under the pseudonym Mary Burchell, UK novelist Cook (1904-1986) wrote more than 100 novels in addition to this enchanting memoir, first published in 1950 as We Followed Our Stars. This reprint of the updated 1976 version features a new foreword by scholar Anne Sebba, and the charming, harrowing tale of the Cook sisters, Ida and Louise, whose holiday from their suburban London home to the United States and Western Europe turns from a music lover's grand tour into an international mission to save Jews from the Nazis. Passionate music fans, the Cook sisters' first foray into the world brought them into contact not just with operatic luminaries but the harsh realities of a world on the brink. With ingenuity, boundless optimism and the will to risk their lives, the Cook sisters smuggle jewels to fund the release of Jews about to be shipped to concentration camps and set up networks of satellite families for displaced Jews in safe nations. Pocked with heart-stopping moments-close calls and reunited families rank high-this lovingly written true story shines a light through one of humanity's darkest chapters.