nicole holland

She never saw herself as anything special, unlike her siblings. Beautiful sister Helene was perfecting her acting skills. Younger sister Madeleine was a blond, blue-eyed beauty who excelled at school. Baby brother Robert was earning a living singing and dancing by age 12. She was just an ordinary Jewish girl until she became a courageous courier/fighter for the FFI helping to rid France of Nazis.

All of Nicole Holland’s siblings raved about their childhood in their four-room apartment on Ile St. Louis in Paris, France.
Though the family was not wealthy, their youth seemed rich as it was filled with love, laughter, and the joy they experienced with all their friends from Rue Des Deux Ponts. That happy youth was halted when the Germans invaded Paris, demanded they be labeled ＂Juif＂ and denied them many of life’s former pleasures, like going to the movies. By 1942 the siblings’ lives veered in totally different directions. Along with several members of their immediate family, Robert was arrested and sent in a cattle car to concentration camps. For thirty-one months, he survived incarceration in four different concentration camps. The sole survivor of the thirteen members of their immediate family incarcerated, Robert told of his survival and his life after the war in his biography, FROM THE HOLOCAUST TO HOGAN’S HEROES (by Robert Clary).

Unlike Robert and other family members who were arrested, Nicole escaped from Paris to the south of France where she hid in the open as a Catholic girl named Pierrette Nicodem. Eventually, she joined the Forces Francaises de L’interieur-the French Underground-first as a courier and then as the only woman fighting with the men to whom she’d supplied messages, guns, and ammunition as they traveled north liberating towns along the way.

Like Robert, Nicole’s indomitable spirit helped her survive the war and create a future without hatred, fear, and the devastation of war. ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES is Nicole’s inspirational journey through a life she never expected.

As an educator with over 37 years of experience, Brenda Hancock encouraged her students to apply what they learned to make the most of their experiences. Listening to her mother’s accounts of her ＂adventures＂ during World War II inspired her to take her teaching career from Texas where it began to Korea, Missouri, Germany, and finally Arkansas, working with students in public schools as well as with the Department of Defense Dependents Schools. In her last years as an educator in public schools, Ms Hancock taught in conjunction with an American history teacher, learning that biography often makes history more relevant for students. In addition to ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES, Ms Hancock has published TALENT LUCK COURAGE in which she contrasts and compares her mother’s war experiences with those of her uncle, Robert Clary, who also survived the Holocaust and established a career in entertainment in television, movies, and live productions. She currently lives in Fayetteville, AR with her husband.