Two Sisters

A riveting, poignant account of two young womenthe authors own mother-in-law, and her sisterand their miraculous escape from the murderous authorities of Vichy France. When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, Marion and Huguette Mllers family was torn apart. After their mother was deported to Auschwitz, the two young Jewish women fled to the Alpine skiing town of Val dIsre, where they were rescued by an incredibly courageous doctor. Through intrepid reporting, sensitive family interviews, and thousands of records, Rosie Whitehouse traces decades-old mysteries of the Mller sisters story, seeking closure and justice for her family and the doctors. Why did he shelter them? Who had betrayed their mother? How did this national tragedy happen? Whitehouses discoveries raise deep moral questions about Frances Holocaust, with urgent resonance for todays politics: questions about French complicity, minority agency, collective culpability, duty to your country and duty to other people. She pieces together not only how the sisters were saved, but how so many others were lost. From villagers to Vichy officials, antisemitism to resistance, this is a sweeping yet intimate history of French choices before, during and after the Nazi occupation; and a moving, gripping tale of forged documents, narrow escapes, one familys trauma, and the grace of human connection.