



Two Sisters
Betrayal, Love, and Resistance in Wartime France
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
This riveting book is an astonishing testimony of what befell two sisters, Whitehouse’s own mother-in-law and aunt, who managed to escape the killing fields in Vichy France against all odds.
Marion and Huguette Müller’s family was torn apart when the Nazis invaded France in 1940. After their mother was deported to Auschwitz, the sisters fled to the small Alpine ski resort village of Val d'Isère, where they were rescued by a brave young doctor.
Through intrepid reporting and meticulous research, Whitehouse traces the story of the Müller sisters, solving decades-old mysteries in her attempt to deliver both closure and justice. With skill and urgency, Whitehouse raises moral questions at the heart of the tragedy of the Shoah: questions about complicity, culpability, about duty to your country and your fellow man. She sifts through thousands of records and pieces together how the sisters were saved, and how so many others were lost.
It is a tale full of shocking discoveries featuring a bloodthirsty killer, secret operatives of the French resistance, forged documents, narrow escapes, and miracles.
Perfect for fans of WWII biographies and autobiographies, Two Sisters combines careful historical research with the intimacy of a family memoir to deliver a haunting account of survival in Nazi-occupied France. Anyone in search of history books for adults or other true story books will find themselves deeply moved by this remarkable story of courage, sacrifice, and hope.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Whitehouse (The People on the Beach) delivers a heartrending account of her mother-in-law's experiences during the Holocaust. Huguette Müller and her sister, Marion, escaped the Nazis with the help of a French doctor named Frédéric Pétri in 1943. To flesh out that story beyond Huguette's memory of it, Whitehouse tracked down the doctor's relatives in California, conducted interviews, and combed through historical records in hopes of adding Dr. Pétri to the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem. Interwoven with the details of Whitehouse's reporting is a portrait of the white-collar Müller family, professionals who distanced themselves from their Judaism in 1920s and '30s Berlin. When the Nazis came to power, the Müllers fled to France, where Huguette and Marion's mother was captured and sent to Auschwitz. The sisters escaped to a ski resort in the French Alps, where Huguette broke her leg and was treated by Dr. Pétri, who took her into his home so they could avoid detection by the Gestapo at a local hospital, and eventually helped them leave France. Whitehouse nimbly balances a white-knuckle wartime narrative with a trenchant examination of the politics of Vichy France. This makes a well-covered historical period feel agonizingly immediate. Photos.