We Were the Lucky Ones

December 5, 2016
Debut author Hunter excavates the remarkable history of her own family in this chronicle, which follows the journeys of a Polish Jewish family during the Holocaust. The 1939 German invasion of Poland sunders the Kurc family. Aging parents Sol and Nechuma stay in their home of Radom, along with their adult daughters Halina and Mila. Their sons Genek and Jakob join the Polish army; a third son, Addy, is stuck in France, soon to be conscripted. During the course of the war, the Kurcs are flung to distant points on the globe, from Brazil to Siberia. They work for the underground, fight battles in Italy, and are imprisoned in gulags. They stage daring escapes from ghettos, hide in plain sight in Polish cities, and, always, yearn for the days when their family was whole. V-day finds some of the Kurcs together, but the celebration is empty; they are still sundered, mourning, and directionless. The Kurc family’s final triumph is not tied to the defeat of the Nazis, but to the family’s survival and reunion against impossible odds. However, this is not a saga with a jubilant Hollywood ending. The Kurc family’s survival is often due to nothing more than desperate luck. Hunter sidesteps hollow sentimentality and nihilism, revealing instead the beautiful complexity and ambiguity of life in this extraordinarily moving tale.

The Kurcs, a large, prosperous Jewish family, were comfortable in Radom, Poland--until the 1939 German invasion. Finding themselves dispersed all across Europe, South America, and elsewhere, the family does all in its power to reunite after the war. Narrator Kathleen Gati doesn't overdramatize this emotional Holocaust story, but neither does she alter her tone to create identifiable characters. Narrator Robert Fass offers a much-needed break in the story's tension as he delivers the historical aspects of the author's account of her family's experiences prior to and during WWII. Gati's use of a slight accent lends credibility to the hardships and heartaches the Kurcs faced--from terrifying encounters with Nazis to the betrayals of friends that led to hiding and, finally, escape from certain death. Intense listening. S.J.H. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine