A CITY is to officially recognise the actions of two former citizens who risked their lives to save Jewish refugees from Hitler's pre-war Germany.

Heroic sisters Ida and Louise Cook, who helped 29 Jews to escape their Nazi persecutors, will be marked with the mounting of a blue plaque at their childhood home, in Sunderland.

It will be unveiled at the entrance gate wall to Croft Avenue by the city’s Mayor, Councillor Alan Emerson, on Friday, international Holocaust Memorial Day.

Members of the Cook family, representatives from the local Jewish community and Sunderland Central MP Julie Elliott, will be among the guests expected to attend.

The plaque and associated educational activities have been funded by members of Sunderland City Council’s East Area Committee.

Following the ceremony, guests will be invited at to a celebratory event at the nearby Chesters pub, where Cllr Emerson, guests from the Cook family and Newcastle Reform Synagogue will give speeches.

It will be followed by a performance by pupils from nearby St Joseph’s Primary School with the Time Bandits historic educational theatre group, who have been involved with the project.

Rolf Cook, from Huntingdon, in Cambridgeshire, the youngest member of the family,, will then be invited to join the mayor cutting a commemorative cake, shaped and decorated like a blue plaque.

The Cook sisters were honoured by the state of Israel in 1965, alongside others who put their lives at risk to rescue fleeing Jews with the award of the Righteous Among the Nations accolade and by the British Government, among the national Heroes of the Holocaust, in 2010.

Posing as eccentric opera lovers they repeatedly travelled to Germany during the late 1930s, smuggling the personal possessions of those facing persecution back to Britain to sell and raise funds for the emigration papers and travel documents the refugees needed to escape to safety.

As a romantic novelist Ida wrote more than 125 novels for Mills and Boon under the pen-name of Mary Burchell.

She used her income as an author to finance the visits to Germany.

Cllr Emerson said: ““Ida and Louise willingly faced terrible danger and possible execution if they were caught, in order to save the lives of those facing terrible persecution from one of the most evil regimes in world history.

We’re delighted that John Cook and other members of the family will be travelling to Sunderland to join us for this occasion, and to help our city commemorate the bravery of the Cook sisters."

Mr Cook said: “I’am delighted to be able to attend the unveiling, together with my cousins Peter and Rolf.

“Ida and Louise viewed what they did as simply the right thing to do, and would be surprised and humbled by the honour that Sunderland does them today..”

Following the unveiling of the plaque local historian Stuart Miller will give a free talk about the lives of the Cook sisters, at Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, at 1.30pm.

A small exhibition, Rescues of the Holocaust, including the Cook sisters’ story, can be viewed at the museum until January 28.