Growing up on Ile St Louis in Paris, Cecile Widerman and her siblings felt their childhood was blessed with afternoons of creativity and summers of sunshine on the beaches of Normandy. Even when Germany declared war on France, little changed for a while. Her younger brother Robert (Robert Clary of Hogan's Heroes) was still able to perform for live audiences and on the radio. 

On June 14, 1940, life changed for them all. Not realizing how great those changes would be, Cecile and her older sister Helene watched in horror as the Germans rolled into Paris and overthrew the French government without firing a shot. Forced to register as a Jew and an indeterminée or person with no nationality, Cecile avoided the Vel D’Hiv roundup. Not as lucky, her sister Helene was arrested and taken to Drancy before being sent on to Auschwitz. Helene never returned. 

With only one change of clothes and the birth certificate of a Catholic girl named Pierrette Nicodem, Cecile escaped to unoccupied France, where she ultimately joined the resistance and became Nic, the little courier carrying guns and messages to a group of men doing all they could to sabotage the Nazis who had overtaken all of France, first in Marseilles, and then in Agen.  

As the Germans began to retreat, she joined that group of men traveling toward Germany, fighting and capturing German soldiers as they liberated towns along the way. Like her younger brother, Robert, who was the only survivor of the 14 members of her immediate family sent to concentration camps, her indomitable spirit helped her survive the war and create a future without hatred, fear, and the devastation of war. 

Never returning to the ordinary, average Cecile of her youth, she remained the fearless Nic in France, moved to Texas without speaking English, and became Nicky to her new American family and friends. One of the Lucky Ones is Nicole Holland’s inspirational journey to a life in America that she never anticipated.