Atlanta Magazine • Atlanta Magazine February 2026 • Editor’s Journal

It was well after midnight, and I was a restless five-year-old wide awake with insomnia. I crept to one of my favorite late-night places—my dad’s desk, where he kept his World War II photographs. We’d just watched Battleground, a film about the siege of Bastogne, a battle my father had fought in as a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division. A few minutes into the movie, he said it was about his company and a battle he’d been in. “I was there,” he said. I caught the excitement in his voice.

“Dad,” I’d asked, gazing at the soldiers on the television screen, “which one is playing you?”

The photographs made the movie real, with my dad in the starring role. I stayed up late, digging deep into the drawer where he kept them. All these years later, I still vividly remember the moment I came across the photograph: my dad in his Army uniform at a resort town with a woman . . . a woman who, you know, was not my mom.

It was a tiny black-and-white print, barely bigger than a Zippo lighter. My dad was sharp and dapper. His pants were tucked into his boots, and his garrison cap—with a parachute patch front and center—was tilted stylishly to the right. The woman was beautiful, with high cheekbones and dark, curly hair. There was an unspoken intimacy in the way they leaned into one another. On the back was a name written in feminine script: “Nicole Bernheim.”

I’m certain the biggest shock I ever gave my father was the next morning, when I walked into the kitchen and asked, “Dad, who’s Nicole?” I didn’t know that question would haunt me for decades.

Eventually I learned a kernel of the story: My father said he helped liberate Dachau, and Nicole was one of the prisoners. She memorized his name and wrote him a letter, and they began to correspond. Ten months later, they met in Nice, France, for a two-week holiday. That’s all he would say.

I spent decades trying to find her, only to hit dead end after dead end. Then, last July, the wall finally collapsed. Armed with a fresh clue—the discovery of a postcard Nicole had sent—I found Nicole. She had passed away in 2003. But I discovered that a decade earlier, she’d given two hours of video testimony to the USC Shoah Foundation, which gathers oral histories from Holocaust survivors. It only deepened the mystery when I learned that Nicole was never at Dachau—she had survived Auschwitz and Ravensbrück. Why did my father need that lie? How did they really meet?

Nicole had three daughters and I reached out to the oldest. She was surprised—her mother had never said a word about my father. She suggested a Zoom call, and after saying hello, we both immediately burst into giggles at the absurdity of it all. Then, a little later, this happened: Nearly 80 years after a Holocaust survivor named Nicole mailed a chatty romantic postcard to an American paratrooper named Wilson in 1946, Wilson’s son read it to Nicole’s daughter.

In the spring, I’m going to Europe to retrace their paths and solve those mysteries. Before he died, I conducted interviews with my dad, and we had talked about walking his battlefields in Bastogne, Belgium, together. Now, I’m taking that trip alone but bringing his memories with me. I’m also going to follow Nicole’s journey from Strasbourg, France, to Auschwitz and, thankfully, back. With any luck, you’ll see a book called Finding Nicole in bookstores about two years from now.

I’m retiring as editor in chief of Atlanta magazine after the March issue so I can write this book. It’s been an honor to follow in the footsteps of such towering figures as Jim Townsend and Lee Walburn. Just as it was an honor to succeed Betsy Riley.

As a journalist and editor, I’ve spent my career telling other people’s stories.

CONTRIBUTORS

Adams has been culture surfing around Atlanta for over 15 years. The former award-winning digital manager and film critic for Creative Loafing has also written for Huffington Post, Living Intown magazine, and Essence. When he’s not writing, he enjoys gardening, bingeing anime shows, and being a self-proclaimed dipsomaniac.

Justin Weaver (right) and Chris McClure make up the photography duo Growl Bros. They call Atlanta, Georgia, and Asheville, North Carolina, home but work anywhere cameras are needed. They’re interested in human-centric storytelling and are all about covering culture, sports, food, social issues, and outdoor adventuring. Their work has been featured in publications such as Victory Journal, Bon Appétit, and ESPN.

Lieberman is a historian and journalist. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Esquire, and other outlets. She’s the author of Buzz: A Stimulating History of the Sex Toy and the forthcoming Gigolos: The Men Who Sell Sex and the Women Who Buy It (Beacon Press).