We Were the Lucky Ones

We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hunter's beautifully told story begins and ends with the Kurc family gathering to celebrate Passover. All that transpires in between is hard to sum up, but I resonated so strongly with each person's overwhelming desire to find and/or return to their family as the horrors of the Holocaust unfolded around them. The even more remarkable thing is that the Kurc family are real people. The story is labeled as historical fiction because Hunter did not want to put words or thoughts into her family members' mouths (her grandfather is the middle of the Kurc family's five children), but the events and experiences of each person are real. The family was part of the 300 people who survived out of town of 30,000 in Poland. They are seemingly ordinary people who did extraordinary things in the name of survival and selfless love of family. I loved this book.

I don't what else to say. Sometimes real life really is stranger and more incredible than fiction.

Happy reading--

(Book 20 - 2019)