2024-07-30
12 分钟Helena Bonham Carter shines a light on extraordinary stories from World War Two. Join her for tales of deception, resistance and courage in series two of History's Secret Heroes.
Helena?
Hello, it's Helena Bonham Carter.
I'm just letting you know that my podcast for BBC Radio Four, History's secret heroes, is back with the second series.
These are ten new stories of unsung heroes, acts of resistance, deception and unbelievable courage.
For the next ten minutes, you'll hear part of the extraordinary story of Ida and Louise Cook, two opera loving sisters from England who helped dozens of jewish people escape Nazi Germany.
Ida and Louise Cook were born three years apart and grew up in a solid church of England family, first in Sunderland, then in Northumberland.
I don't think I'd ever met two sisters who were so close that when one spoke, the other finished the sentence.
Manny Meckler is an opera singer who became close to the cook sisters in their later years.
Ida was a more aggressive one, stronger one, a very strong face and personality, where Louise was a wee bit softer and she would always sit there and sort of like, lick her lips.
Ida would speak and Louise would correct her.
They just became their best companions on everything.
After the girls left school, the family moved to London.
Ida and Louise found work in the civil service.
They carry themselves as very plain, very no nonsense british women.
Isabel Vincent wrote Overture of Hope, a biography of the Cooke sisters.
They lived with their parents their whole life.
They came of age at a time of so called surplus women in England.
The first World War resulted in the death of something like 750,000 Mendenna.
There weren't enough men to marry, but also there was never a sense that they missed that.
You know, I don't want to stereotype them as sort of dowdy, but that was the first impression I had.