In this book, Rosie White­house tells the sto­ry of two sis­ters, her husband’s moth­er and aunt. The scope of the sto­ry, how­ev­er, is far broad­er than that. The author details the his­to­ry of France before World War II and dur­ing the Vichy gov­ern­ment, focus­ing on the choic­es that the sis­ters and their fam­i­lies made as well as the choic­es made by the French peo­ple and gov­ern­ment dur­ing the Holo­caust.. A quote from the younger sis­ter, Huguette, sums up the focus of the book, ​“What would you have done?” 

White­house begins the book with the sto­ry of Huguette, her husband’s nine­ty-one-year-old aunt, whose life was saved when she was six­teen by a doc­tor who seemed to bare­ly know her or her sis­ter. This unex­plain­able res­cue has con­sumed Huguette for many years. In response to Huguette’s desire for under­stand­ing and clo­sure, White­house takes us along on a jour­ney in search of the answers. 

Huguette and her sis­ter Mar­i­on were born in Berlin, where their par­ents were wealthy, promi­nent mem­bers of their com­mu­ni­ty. Until Hitler came to pow­er, Mar­i­on claimed, she had no idea that she was Jew­ish. Huguette, how­ev­er, states that she always knew she was a Jew, although she had been bap­tized. Despite their assim­i­la­tion, the family’s life was dev­as­tat­ed by Hitler’s rise to pow­er. In des­per­a­tion, Mar­i­on and Huguette flee to France with their moth­er. Their father also moved with his mistress.

In France, Mar­i­on met Pierre Hey­mann, who would even­tu­al­ly become her hus­band. By 1940, under the Vichy gov­ern­ment, the lives of Huguette, Mar­i­on and Pierre became an exhaust­ing sto­ry of going from place to place in pur­suit of work, and hid­ing their iden­ti­ty as Jews. Pierre was a mem­ber of the French Resis­tance and had a num­ber of near-death escapes.

White­house com­pelling­ly tells the sto­ry of the Mullers’ sur­vival in France against the con­stant fear of being cap­tured or sent to a death camp. Huguette and Mar­i­on sur­vived sep­a­rate­ly through most of the war. Huguette escaped with her moth­er, first to the Cote d’Azur and then to Paris. When her moth­er didn’t return home one day, hav­ing been betrayed by some­one as they were about to obtain papers to leave the coun­try, Huguette ran to her father and his mis­tress for their help. Find­ing that his assis­tance was ephemer­al, she reunit­ed with Mar­i­on, who took her to a small town in the moun­tains called Val d’Isere. They lived there until Huguette slipped on the ice and broke her leg in a freak acci­dent that changed the course of their lives. Mar­i­on brought the six­teen-year-old Huguette to a Dr. Fred­er­ic Petri, who insist­ed that Huguette go to a hos­pi­tal or risk a per­ma­nent limp. When Huguette blurt­ed out that she would rather limp than die, the doc­tor offered to care for her for six months while she recov­ers. They agreed, and Huguette helped out at their chalet, remain­ing hid­den most of the time. Mar­i­on returned after six months and Huguette left with her. Tying togeth­er all of the threads, the author con­cludes that Mar­i­on had prob­a­bly known Dr. Petrie and oth­ers in his town through her own work with the Resis­tance, which she nev­er dis­cussed. That is why she trust­ed him to care for her sister.

Mar­i­on shared few details of her life, so the sto­ry is often based on doc­u­ments the author finds, sto­ries of oth­ers in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions, and tales she is told when she vis­its the places where Mar­i­on and Huguette resided. White­house points out that there were many indi­vid­u­als who helped Jews, includ­ing Dr. Petri. How­ev­er, she also con­tex­tu­al­izes this sup­port: many peo­ple opposed the Vichy gov­ern­ment and Nazism, and pre­vent­ing the depor­ta­tion of Jews or oth­er spe­cif­ic anti­se­mit­ic acts was an act against Nazism and the gov­ern­ment (and might have had lit­tle to do with con­cern for Jews).

White­house also dis­cuss­es the fail­ure of the Vichy gov­ern­ment and many indi­vid­u­als to pro­tect the Jews. Many Jews had fled to France dur­ing the ear­ly years of the war and, like the Mullers, even­tu­al­ly lost their sta­tus as French nation­als. This made it eas­i­er to send them to exter­mi­na­tion camps. In sev­er­al instances when gov­ern­ment offi­cials refused to com­ply, there was no retal­i­a­tion — mak­ing the read­er pause and reflect on the num­ber of Jews who could have been saved had those in pow­er act­ed more ethically. 

Two Sis­ters is a com­pelling sto­ry of strength, love, and resis­tance, but also of betray­al. It not only tells a per­son­al sto­ry but reminds us of the respon­si­bil­i­ty that we have for one anoth­er and that gov­ern­ments have to pro­tect their citizens.