Two Against Hitler The Daring Mission to Save Europe's Opera Stars from the Nazis

by Vincent, Isabel

• ISBN13: 9780316455022
• ISBN10: 0316455024
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2022-05-03
• Publisher: Hachette Books

Summary

An extraordinary account of two British sisters whose obsession with opera became a cover for their roles in helping Jewish refugees flee the Nazis during World War II--a true story that is one part Schindler's List, one part The Sound of Music and all but forgotten, until now.

Born in the early 1900s in small-town England, the Cook sisters--Ida, a budding romance novelist, and Louise, a civil service typist-were single, like many in the Great War generation. They devoted their free time to their passion for opera, making frequent pilgrimages in the 1930s to Germany and Austria to see their favorite stars, many of them Jewish.

Along with the charismatic Austrian conductor Clemens Krauss (a favorite of Hitler's), the Cooks helped form a cabal of opera world insiders who worked in secrecy to save Jews from Hitler between 1937 and the outbreak of World War II. With their seemingly oblivious disposition and gaudy attire, the sisters eluded suspicion of Nazi spies, eventually helping over two dozen Jewish members of the opera community find safe passage to London--men and women who otherwise would have likely perished in the Holocaust.

Based on original research and packed with vivid details--many revealed here for the first time--Isabel Vincent's Two Against Hitler will join the ranks of bestselling books like Code Girls and Hidden Figures in shining the spotlight on the extraordinary contributions of women in wartime.

Author Biography

Isabel Vincent is an investigative reporter for the New York Post. Previously, she was a foreign correspondent based in Rio de Janeiro and before that she covered the conflicts that led to the war in Kosovo. Her work has appeared in magazines and newspapers all over the world, including the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, L’Officiel, and Time. She is the author of four books: Gilded Lily: Lily Safra: The Making of One of the World’s Wealthiest Widows; Bodies and Souls: The Tragic Plight of Three Jewish Women Forced into Prostitution in the Americas; Hitler’s Silent Partners: Swiss Banks, Nazi Gold and the Pursuit of Justice; and See No Evil: The Strange Case of Christine Lamont and David Spencer. The recipient of numerous journalism honors, including the Canadian Association of Journalist’s Award for Excellence in Investigative Journalism, she has been a journalism fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto. Vincent won the National Jewish Book Award in Canada for Bodies and Souls and the Yad Vashem Award for Holocaust History for Hitler’s Silent Partners. She grew up in Toronto and speaks French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Today, she lives in New York.