Ida and Louise Cook. Cook. Never heard of ’em. But, maybe I should have, and for now, a short post celebrating these ladies is in order, Yay Ida and Louise!
But who TF were they? They were unmarried sisters who, in their mid thirties, still lived with their parents, commuting to jobs in London where they both worked as typists in the British civil service. Ida also had a career writing romance novels (112 total) for Mills and Boon (England’s version of Harlequin) under the name Mary Burchell, and yes, I actually read Burchell’s books as a teen; my mother had a box of Harlequin’s delivered monthly under my name until I was almost thirty, when I was definitely not living at home. The sisters, Louise was born in 1901 and Ida in 1904, wore home made clothes throughout their early work and social lives, and were each educated at The Duchess’s School in Alnwick. The sisters shared a love of opera, so much so that they would travel to Germany for the weekend simply to attend the opera there throughout the 1930s.
But here’s the thing, in their ill-fitting but serviceable clothes, the sisters were unremarkable in every way except one: they were smuggling money, jewels and other goods – as well as people – out of Germany in the lead up to World War II. Their ability to be ignored as dowdy English spinsters when they crossed into Germany and then back out again wearing furs and diamond necklaces was genius. These valuables would help refugees who would follow the sisters out to survive in their new lives in England. Additionally, back home, Ida and Louise found sponsors for the refugees, individuals and families who would house them, as well as assembling the proper documentation and even, at one point, renting an apartment as an initial resting place for those who were newly arrived. The Cook sisters always used their own money in these efforts, in order for the refugees to have no up front obligations in setting up their new lives.
Ida and Louise Cook cleverly entered and left Germany via various different checkpoints, thus the same guards wouldn’t be able to notice a sudden acquisition of the accessories of wealth; they also lied about valuables kept in their purses: ‘we can’t trust them in our apartment when we aren’t there!’ Most impressively, in all the trips they undertook, they were never caught. Eventually the sisters had to halt their trips into Germany, but prior to doing so they were directly responsible for rescuing 29 people, bringing them to safety in the U.K. The Cook sisters, however, didn’t stop working for the cause, continuing to raise money and awareness regarding the widening crisis for Jews in Germany and Europe, and they continued to help refugees in England.
In 1964 the Cook sisters were honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. Ida Cook wrote a memoir that was republished as ‘Safe Passage‘ in 2008. In it, she plays down their role, saying that what they offered wasn’t much. In exchange for saving lives, they only needed “some trouble, some eloquence, and some money.”
And bravery. And empathy. And the anonymity endowed by being a dowdy middle-class women in the 1930s (and possibly even to this day). And oh were they clever! Yay Ida and Louise Cook. Now you know.