The Opera Sisters Quotes

“Above all, I extend remembrance and honor to more than eleven million Jews, homosexuals, political opponents, Roma and Sinti, Jehovah’s Witnesses, houseless persons, and people with disabilities murdered by the Nazi regime; the seventy million military personnel and civilians who were killed during the war; and the countless millions of survivors whose lives were upended by it. May their legacies inspire us to work tirelessly today for peace.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“Louise and Ida’s story is one of many from the era that have been overlooked and forgotten until quite recently, and it’s been an honor to revisit and retell it. Their legacy—a dedication to love in the face of violence, art in the face of destruction, and goodness when faced with sheer evil—is a remarkable inspiration.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“Ida published 112 romance novels with Mills & Boon under the pseudonym Mary Burchell. She became the president of the Romantic Novelists Association in 1966 and said at that meeting: “Romance is the quality which gives an air of probability to our dearest wishes... people often say life isn’t like that, but life is often exactly like that. Illusions and dreams often do come true.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“Their father laughed at the fuss being made. “It will come to nothing. Hitler’s threats are empty.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“The Evian Conference on Jewish Refugees: When the negligible outcomes of the conference were published, the German papers noted that while foreign governments criticized their policies, none wanted to open their own doors to those being targeted.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“Puccini had just vividly demonstrated the greatest evil and cruelty to humankind lay not in what you do to a person directly, but in separating them from those they love.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“Twenty thousand people streamed into Madison Square Garden, past protestors and mounted police, beneath a marquis advertising the “Pro-America Rally.” Inside, the crowd faced a thirty-foot-tall portrait of George Washington, surrounded on both sides by American flags—and swastikas. Long files of clean-cut boys in ties marched in, followed by a row of wholesome girls wearing modest dark skirts. They were graduates of youth training camps—summer camps, some called them—sponsored by German loyalists.
Fritz Kuhn, leader of the German American Bund, took the stage and promised to be “the Hitler of America.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“I’m afraid it’s a great deal worse than we can possibly convey,” Ida explained, more confident than she’d been before. “Many of our cases are in desperate circumstances. Their livelihoods have been taken away, their assets seized, and they’re left with no way to support themselves or feed their families. They’re starving. And being daily removed to work camps.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“How far will they go in their quest for purification? That’s anyone’s guess, but you’ve heard the stories from the lips of those who are living it. I imagine you could tell, as much as anyone right now, the lengths to which they’re willing to go in pursuit of their exalted utopia. Hitler has stated that war would mean the extermination of the Jewish race in Europe. Some say he’s using hyperbole, but idle words have an alarming way of morphing into action.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“As we’ve said before, they’re attempting to develop a repertoire that matches the aesthetics and ideology of National Socialism. They want ‘pure’ German content, drawn from national fairy tales, and legends—anything that deals with the glorification of the fatherland, or the politics of race. They’ve targeted the new jazz out of America because it’s linked with Africans, but the music is so popular, Goebbels can’t keep the people away from the swing bands, so they pretend it’s German. They recently broadcast Duke Ellington’s ‘Caravan,’ repressing its origin. They rewrote Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus with Judas rebirthed as a powerful military dictator.”
“They’re trying to erase reality,” Ida said, incredulously.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“Louise tucked the jewelry into the black silk purse, and Ida settled the mink around her shoulders awkwardly.
“Will anyone possibly believe this is mine? What a ridiculous thing, having to trust a perfect stranger with your most valuable possessions. How can she know we won’t just take them home and keep them?”
“She doesn’t,” Louise said somberly. “And there’s nothing to stop us from doing it either.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“Have you heard that Jewish houses and all their belongings must be registered with the Nazi government?...
Everything above five thousand reichsmarks must be registered. We believe they intend to confiscate it all. Without money, no foreign government will allow us entry, and we will be unable to leave Germany.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“Music fixes everything, Ida marveled. Perhaps, it could even fix a broken heart.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“This literary purging, the soldiers said in hard, decisive words, would purify German society from communists and socialists...
A few blocks away, charred pages and fragments of burning ash descended on the streets of Frankfurt like the exhale of a great forge.
Standing by their darkened window, Paul wrapped a shawl around his wife’s shoulders and softly whispered a phrase from the German lyric poet Heinrich Heine: “Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.”
Where they burn books, they will, in the end, also burn people.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“Martin Heidegger [a German philosopher] said that Germany’s soul needs to ‘breathe fresh air,’ and National Socialism will provide it. That freedom of inquiry and expression are selfish ideas and we should dedicate ourselves and our work to something larger than ourselves—the Nazi state.”
Mitia closed her eyes. “And those who will not?”
“Sent to Dachau. A work camp they have just opened near Munich.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“[After the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich 1924, Hitler is put on trial and spends 24 days in court]
“I ask you: Is what we wanted high treason?
“You, my Lords, will not speak the final judgment in this case; that judgment will be up to ‘History,’ the goddess of the highest court, which will speak over our graves and over yours. And when we appear before that court, I know its verdict in advance. That Court will judge us as Germans who wanted the best for their people and their fatherland, who wished to fight and to die.
“You may speak your verdict of ‘guilt’ a thousand times over, but ‘History,’ the goddess of a higher truth and a higher court, will one day laughingly tear up the verdict of this court, for she declares us to be innocent!”
By the time he was released from prison only ten months later, Adolf Hitler had never been more popular.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“Prices rose by the hour. Restaurants didn’t bother printing menus. By the time the bill arrived, the price had changed. American visitors couldn’t spend their money because no German had marks enough to exchange them. People carted money through the streets in wheelbarrows. The cost of one loaf of bread rose to 4.6 million marks.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“My dears, the past few years have enlightened us all," Rosa told them. "It is easy to think that there are sharp lines dividing good people and bad people, but we all have dark passions inside waiting to be stirred up. It's easier than we think to become convinced that decency is for the weak, that democracy is naive, that kindness and respect are rediculous. The whole world has been reminded these past few years that the things we care about have to be nurtured and defended because even seemingly good people have the potential to do hideous things. That's the evil you were fighting, all those times you risked your own safety and helped others escape from Europe. How did you live with so much fear and danger?"
Ida found herself echoing Rosa's words right back to her. "It was as simple, really. The opportunity presented itself. How could we do anything other than what we did?”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“People could lose everything, she realized-their houses, their wealth, every possession, even their culture, and their community. But without the people they loved best, life was scarcely worth living.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters

“Sometimes I think I've addled my brain with too many romance novels.”
― Marianne Monson, The Opera Sisters