Diane
Tuckman and Cecile Spiegel fled religious persecution with WWII conflicts at
their heels. Separately, from Egypt and from Germany, each leaped continents,
cultures, and languages as a refugee before finding a new home in the United
States. Hiding in plain sight in France, Cecile eluded capture by the Nazis, but
lost many dear to her. Diane came of age there, far from the Mediterranean
idyll of her childhood in Egypt. They relied on family, faith, and resilience to
overcome the otherness felt by displaced peoples. As they dictated their memoirs
to one another, Diane and Cecile discovered the anatomy of their friendship in
their parallel odysseys and the optimism of 20th-century American womanhood.