Hero Sisters Thanked by Israel for WWII Actions

Mar. 23, 1965 - In London today, two non-Jewish English spinsters traveled from their quiet suburban home to receive Israel’s thanks for smuggling 29 Jews out of prewar Germany.

The expression of gratitude was presented by the Israeli Ambassador, Arthur Lourie, to Louise and Ida Cook (pictured far right and far left).

The middle-aged sisters had made repeated trips to Germany and Austria in the guise of being rich and eccentric opera lovers. They transferred documents, arranged passage, smuggled out valuables and, of course, attended the opera.

They even managed to get one man out of the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1939, but he died shortly after arriving in Britain. Others who were rescued are still alive, however, and five were present at the embassy to add their thanks.

One was Walter Stiefel, now a lecturer in modern literature at Manchester University. He said the Cook sisters’ exploits “now seem to be right out of James Bond.”

“I think if they realized the danger of their work, they would never have been successful,” he said. “They were just naive, warm-hearted women — and they got away with it. They just don’t look the type.“The Cooks became a legend, and every time they entered the country there was a chain reaction over the underground grapevine. Finally, some English friends directed the sisters to my mother and me.”How did they make contact?“We almost didn’t,” Stiefel said. “I was supposed to be carrying an English newspaper in the Berlin station, but just that day there were no English papers available. I bought a Dutch one, but it was no good.

“They were staying at the Adlon Hotel in Berlin — fantastic. It was Nazi headquarters, where Hitler stayed. But I called them, and we made another rendezvous.”

Stiefel said it was as important to get an entry visa to Britain, or any other country, as it was to get exit permits from the Nazis. The Cook sisters arranged these documents.

Today, Louise Cook said it all began when a friend, the late conductor Clemens Krauss, told them in Vienna of the plight of some Jewish friends. The Cooks decided to help.

Stiefel was asked why the recognition had come so late.

He said: “The Israelis apparently have been seeking to honor people like the Cooks, but few of those they helped escape ended up in Israel. So, their story wasn’t known there. It’s funny. It would have been forgotten altogether if there never was a state of Israel.”

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