We Were The Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter

Author : Georgia Hunter
Title : We Were The Lucky Ones
Published : 2017
Publisher : Allison & Busby
Pages : 448
Genre : Historical Fiction

     The Kurc family shouldn't have survived the Holocaust. In the spring of 1939 three generations are living relatively normal lives in Poland, despite the hardships Jews face. When war breaks out and the family is cast to the wind,  We Were the Lucky Ones is a profoundly moving and memorable novel based on the author's family experiences.

     We Were The Lucky Ones is a staggering epic tale of what happens to one family. Within the pages of this book, there was so much for me to take in and find a place for. With such a book normally we would follow one hero as they fought to survive the Holocaust, but Hunter has opened up this experience to a whole family. And it would be a lot to take in if they were all going through the same experience there to help each other out as much as you could. But in Hunter's tale, it is a family that not only gets torn apart, but they are also then scattered to the four winds. How do you keep a family together when they can't see each other and hold them close. 

     I was a bit hesitant as to whether this author would be able to keep my interest going in this cast. It is an easy thing to fill your book with a wide and varied cast. what takes skill is to be able to give each of them enough page time to go on careening about them. Here I feel the author managed to pull off such a feat. Not only did it allow for mew to get a grasp on this one family, but it also shows some of the varied fates of Jewish people in Poland during the war. I think some times it is far to easy to say they were all murdered by the Nazi death machine. And while it's true a great many perished some did, in fact, escape for what they had hoped was for a better life. It is, however, worth noting that a great many countries where not so happy to take in those who were expelled. We all think that our own countries did so much to try and help but that would simply not be the case. 

     This book for me is like a giant spider's web stretching out across time and space. It manages to tell a story of not only the greater fate of Jewish people but also a much more personal one. This author makes this story feel very intimate and close to your heart. And maybe in part that is because it is partly based on truth. It allows for something to move you in a certain way. I always worry that having read so many books of a similar theme that they will have less of an impact on me. But as I keep finding so often it is in the human tragedy we find a connection. We route for them to see the other side to beat the odds and have a happy ending.  

     This is a book that most certainly struck a chord with me. Despite all it's darkness it is I think a book of hope that when all seems lost we should fight ever the more so. That while we can never truly guarantee a happy outcome that is no reason to stop. We must all pick our selves up and keep trying.