We Were the Lucky Ones

“Before, she would have called herself a mother, a wife, an accomplished pianist. But now she is nothing more than that, simply, Jude

Mila is shocked that her identity as an individual has been stripped from her. Christian Poles view her only as a Jew, which has come to mean something inferior and unsavory. 

“He folds his handkerchief back into his pocket. Home. Family. Nothing is more important. He knows that now.” 

Now that he is prohibited from traveling back to his family, Addy feels the pain of separation. Previously, if he received a job offer in New York, he would have jumped at the opportunity. With the onset of anti-Semitic destruction in Europe, all Addy wants is to reunite with his family. His handkerchief, which his mother sewed for him, represents a tangible connection to what matters most to him now: family.

“Though they wouldn’t do them any good in the new flat, these were the things that mattered, Nechuma realized as she turned them over in her hands. These were the things that defined them. In the end, she allowed herself one suitcase of keepsakes with which she couldn’t part.” 

As she decides what to take and what to leave when they are forced out of their home, Nechuma allows herself to bring a few mementoes of her family’s life: photographs, things her children wore when they were young, sheets of music they had played. She believes that these are their most valuable items. In addition, Nechuma holds onto valuables such as her amethyst necklace, which later proves its usefulness when the Kurcs must exchange goods for safety.

“And besides, he’d spent every day of his life in Poland, had fought for Poland—he sure as hell wasn’t going to give up his nationality just because a border had changed.” 

Genek refuses to check a box on a form to confirm that he accepts Soviet citizenship. He thinks it’s absurd to relinquish his Polish citizenship because he has lived in Poland his entire life, and the Soviet Union has been Poland’s avowed enemy. However, Genek doesn’t understand the ramifications of his choice: Soldiers later send Genek and Herta to a labor camp in Siberia due to his actions. Genek deeply regrets his lack of understanding of how profoundly their world has changed due to the war.

“Halina thinks about how, before the war, fifty zloty was nothing. A new scarf, perhaps. An evening at the Grand Theatre in Warsaw. Now, it’s a week’s worth of meals, a train ticket, a way out of jail. Now, it’s a lifeline.” 

Halina must adjust to the changes to their lives. She grew up as an upper-middle class girl, accustomed to privilege and luxuries. Now she recognizes how an amount of cash that she would have frivolously spent has become precious and could be the difference between life and death. Whereas she once equated money with a scarf, she now equates money with avoiding starvation, jail, and death.

“At the sight of the Alsina’s huge black hull looming over the harbor, he laughed and cried in the same breath, at once overwhelmed with hope and anticipation of what the free world would bring, and devastated by the notion of leaving Europe, and with it his family, behind.” 

Addy is ambivalent about leaving on the ship to Brazil, as this act represents entering into a new life and saying goodbye to his previous one. Addy misses and worries about his family intensely, and moving farther away from them, rather than closer, is painful. However, Addy chooses to survive, and he becomes the only Kurc to have escaped the German occupation. 

“They need Halina now more than ever—they need the money and the IDs, but even more they need her conviction. They need someone […] who can look them in the eye and declare with confidence that there is a plan. A plan that will get them out of the ghetto.” 

Halina, the baby of the Kurc family, becomes their protector. She is strong-willed and determined, as well as practical. These are all attributes that are needed to keep the family safe and keep them from falling into despair. Throughout the narrative, Halina draws power from her family to persevere. 

“Halina contemplates how the war, until recently, has in many ways felt surreal. For a while, her family got by. Soon enough, she often told herself, life would return to normal. […] But then things started to fall apart. First it was Selim, then Genek and Herta—gone. Vanished. Then it was Bella’s sister, Anna. And now, Adam. All around her, it seems, Jews were disappearing. And suddenly, the consequences of this war were undeniably real—an understanding that sent Halina spiraling as she wrestled with the knowledge she both feared and loathed: she was powerless.” 

Halina herself feels overwhelmed by the new circumstances brought onto the family by the war. What felt like a temporary situation now feels more permanent, and this chips away at Halina’s natural fortitude. As a person accustomed to getting her way, Halina finds it devastating to feel herself made powerless in the face of such crushing circumstances. However, Halina overcomes this sense of powerless.

“And at the sound of the first muffled crack, something in her three-and-a-half-year-old mind realizes she’ll never forget this day—the smell of the cold, unforgiving earth; the way the ground had shaken beneath her when the man a row over had tried to run; the way his blood had spilled from the hole in his head like water from an overturned jug; the pain in her chest as she’d run like she’d never run before, toward a woman she’d never seen before; and now, the sound of shots being fired, one after another, over and over again.” 

Felicia has suffered from fear and confusion for as long as she can remember. Although she is still a very young child, the war’s circumstances have forced her to mature to ensure her survival. At times, she must remain quiet and alone to avoid the guards’ detection. In this scene, she almost witnesses her mother’s death. Despite her age, she recognizes that the Jewish massacre occurring outside the train is so traumatic that she will never forget it. 

“But with the news from Łódź she’s come to understand that the situation they are in now is something entirely different. This isn’t just being subjected to profound hunger and poverty. This isn’t persecution. This is extermination.” 

Nechuma comes to comprehend that what the Nazis are carrying out is not just another pogrom, but a systemic destruction of her people, based on their religion. She still believes that the Nazis will not succeed. She still tries to remain optimistic, that there is hope for her family’s survival. In this moment, Nechuma, like Sol, must come to terms with their denial and accept the reality of their circumstances. 

“A captured Jew, they’ve heard, can be worth as much as a bag of sugar, or a dozen eggs. The Poles take the hunt seriously. The Germans, too. They’ve come up with a name for it: Judenjagd. Jew hunt. Jews caught can be delivered dead or alive, it makes no difference. The Germans have also imposed the death penalty against any Poles found with a Jew in hiding.” 

Halina has found an elderly couple who agrees to let her parents stay in exchange for money, but she is still afraid that an informant will find out about their hiding place. Halina regards how cheaply the murder of a Jew can be bought as unbelievable. This reality causes Halina great anxiety, as well as not knowing if she has brought her parents to safety or to greater danger.

“Genek peels off a wedge for himself and closes his eyes as he chews. The flavor explodes on his tongue. It’s the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted.”

After incredible deprivation for so long, Genek is enraptured by the taste of an orange given to him by a kind local woman in Persia. It represents the first sign that better days are coming, that they will not perish like so many of the people they have seen on their journey.

“Mila’s work is far from ideal, but it pays, and despite the fact that her heart breaks every day to be around a child that is not her own, she likes Edgar, as spoiled as he is, and the job is far better than her old one at the workshop in Wałowa. At least here in Warsaw, unlike in the ghetto, she has a small semblance of autonomy.” 

Mila, again doing what she must for the safety of her child, is living apart from Felicia. Mila works as a maid for a German family. It is not easy work, but this position allows her to come and go through the streets of Warsaw. Prior, the ghetto in Radom felt like a prison to her.

“What matters, she tells herself, is that even on the hardest days, when the grief is so heavy she can barely breathe, she must carry on. She must get up, get dressed, and go to work. She will take each day as it comes. She will keep moving.” 

Grief overcomes Bella due to the disappearance and presumed death of her sister and parents. When she becomes so thin that her clothes fall off her body, it shocks her into realizing that she must strive to start living again, for Jakob’s sake. Bella resolves to go through the motions of living, until she can feel true life again. This demonstrates the emotional and psychological toll the war has on Jewish citizens. Although Bella herself is physically unscathed, her emotional trauma is causing her own slow death.

“Genek nods, struck by the notion that it took an internment camp, an amnesty, and an army to enable Selim to practice the profession he’d been denied in Radom.” 

Selim is prohibited from practicing as a doctor in Radom, due to racist restrictions on Jews. Genek finds it ironic that the war, which brings such deprivation and dispossession, later restores Selim’s ability to practice his profession. However, Selim may practice medicine, not independently, but through the British forces.

“She had to keep herself safe in order to keep her family safe. And so she’d watched from afar as the ghetto burned, her heart filled with sorrow and hatred but also with pride—never before had she witnessed such a valiant act of self-defense.” 

Halina is inspired by the courageous, though futile, efforts of the resistance in the Warsaw ghetto to defend themselves. Nazis view the Jews as timid, afraid to fight back, so the bravery shown by the resisters is a symbol of defiance and self-determination.

“Caroline reaches for his hand across the table with tears in her eyes, and all of a sudden the story that he hasn’t told for so many years comes tumbling out.” 

Addy suffered for so many years, feeling alone in his worry and yearning for his family. Caroline offers him the first chance to share his feelings with someone else, which transforms Addy’s life and cements his feelings for her. This scene also demonstrates the power of story, as Caroline later recounts details of Addy’s life for the author. 

“She mustn’t break. She’s smart enough to know that the ones who break don’t return. And she refuses to take her last breath in this godforsaken jail.” 

Halina feels her resolve tested when she is imprisoned, starved, and beaten. Although she wants to give up, she persuades herself to stay strong, to not let her enemies win. For the sake of her family, she determines to stay alive.

“Hitler has been defeated—the war is over. Which means, technically, they are free to be Kurcs and Eichenwalds and Kajlers again. To be Jews again. But the mood in the apartment isn’t celebratory. Not while the rest of the family is unaccounted for. And not with so many dead.” 

There is no cheering and giddy celebration for the Kurcs when Truman announces the end of the war. They are thankful beyond words that they can cast aside their assumed Aryan identities and be open about their heritage again, but too much misery has left its mark. In addition, too much uncertainty remains for them to feel jubilant. For the Kurcs, the war is not truly over until the family members reunite.

“Now, those fragments of her past have begun to drift back down to earth, and for the first time in over half a decade she has allowed herself to believe that, with time and patience, she might just be able to stitch together a semblance of what was. It will never be the same—she’s wise enough to understand that. But they are here, and for the most part, together, which has begun to feel like something of a miracle.”

“Now, those fragments of her past have begun to drift back down to earth, and for the first time in over half a decade she has allowed herself to believe that, with time and patience, she might just be able to stitch together a semblance of what was. It will never be the same—she’s wise enough to understand that. But they are here, and for the most part, together, which has begun to feel like something of a miracle.”

“Even in her sleep, Mila realizes, her daughter looks scared. The last five years have stripped her of her innocence.” 

Although Mila tries her best to keep Felicia safe during the war, she could not keep her daughter free from all trauma and fear. Felicia cannot remember a time when she felt secure. The last repercussions of growing up during the war will stay with Felicia for the rest of her life.

“And if all goes well, in due time they’ll be allowed to emigrate to the United States. To America. The word sings when they speak it—of freedom, of opportunity, of the chance to start anew.” 

Jakob and Bella board the train to Stuttgart, on their way to the camp from which they expect to leave for America. The very word “America” invokes the sentiments of freedom, opportunity, and hope, which they have lacked during the war years.

“He shakes his head, blinks, and suddenly it’s as if he is floating in a realm that doesn’t belong to his body. From somewhere just shy of the embassy ceiling, he stares down at the room, at Roberto, at himself, still holding the telegram, at the tiny black letters strewn across the paper. It is only by the sound of his own laughter that he is brought back to earth.” 

Emotion overcomes Addy when he reads the telegram from Genek and learns that his family is alive and well. This moment is so grand that he has an out-of-body experience. He has hoped and dreamed of his family’s safety for so many years that he can scarcely believe it is real.