We Were the Lucky Ones
We Were the Lucky Ones is Georgia Hunter's 2017 debut novel, a closely researched historical novel based on the true story of her own great-grandfather's family. The Kurcs were a large, prosperous Jewish family in Radom, an industrial city in central Poland, when the German army crossed the border in September 1939. By the time the war ended six years later, all five adult siblings, their parents, and several of their spouses and small children had been scattered across three continents and through nearly every category of wartime survival: a Soviet labor camp in the Siberian taiga, the Polish army-in-exile fighting up the Italian peninsula at Monte Cassino, hiding in plain sight on Aryan papers in occupied Warsaw and Lviv, the French resistance, and a long detour through wartime Brazil. Hunter, who began researching the book after a high-school assignment, traces the family's separations and reunions across forty short, kinetic chapters.
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What you might want to know about We Were the Lucky Ones
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Georgia Hunter follows the five grown Kurc siblings of Radom, Poland, after the German invasion in September 1939.
Yes. Georgia Hunter spent years researching her own family's survival across multiple continents during World War II. The novel is based on real testimony, letters, and documents.
Yes. Hulu released an eight-episode series adaptation in March 2024 starring Joey King and Logan Lerman.
We Were the Lucky Ones was written by Georgia Hunter, published in 2017 by Penguin Publishing Group.
We Were the Lucky Ones is 528 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, We Were the Lucky Ones takes most readers 8 to 11 hours to finish.
We Were the Lucky Ones is a standalone novel by Georgia Hunter, not part of a series.
We Were the Lucky Ones is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
