We Were The Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter

There are really no words to describe the vicious cruelty inflicted by the Nazis and their collaborators on Jewish communities during WWII. Many groups experienced the brutality of the Nazis. But the systematic terror of the Jews was beyond horrific. This novel is a testament to one family’s luck, grit and love during one of the darkest chapters of human history.

Georgia Hunter’s fictionalized story We Were The Lucky Ones is based on the experiences of the Kurc Family: her grandfather, his four siblings and their parents who lived in Radom, Poland. When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, the author’s grandfather and his siblings were all in their twenties. As Jews, their safety became tenuous since the Nazis had no problem dragging people from their homes to send them to camps or simply shooting them on the spot. The plight of all these family members is gripping as they make different decisions about how best to stay alive.

Millions of Jews were shot, starved, tortured, and treated like animals. Georgia Hunter’s family was indeed lucky to have survived. Their physical and emotional endurance was strong, while their stories were terrifying and miraculous. They all suffered through six years of fear, uncertainty, starvation, violence and brutality. The melding of non-fiction and fiction makes the book more complicated, yet reading what happened to the Kurc family is to bear witness to the horrors of the Holocaust and the triumph of the human spirit. 4/5