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• We Were the Lucky Ones Viking (New York, NY), 2017

1. We were the lucky ones LCCN 2016655639 Type of material Book Personal name Hunter, Georgia, 1978- author. Main title We were the lucky ones / Georgia Hunter. Published/Produced New York : Viking, 2017. Projected pub date 1702 Description pages cm ISBN 9780399563089 (hardback) 9780399563102 (ebook)

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgiahunter/

  Georgia Farinholt
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  Self University of Virginia
  Norwalk, Connecticut 437 437 connections
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  Author of the forthcoming novel, We Were the Lucky Ones, to be released by Viking Books on Feb. 14, 2017.

  "At fifteen I learned my grandfather (who I could have sworn was American through and through) was a Polish-born Jew. Not long after, I overheard aunts and uncles telling stories about a family - ours - that, by all measures, should never have survived the Holocaust. A spark was ignited, and I found myself searching for answers.

  Fast forward through years of research, interviews, sleuthing around archives, and multiple trips overseas to places like Poland and Paris and Brazil, and We Were the Lucky Ones was born."

  Published travel writer with a focus on the adventure travel industry.

  Five years experience as a brand consultant, advising Fortune 500 companies such as Delta Airlines and Georgia-Pacific on creative brand marketing. See less

  "At fifteen I learned my grandfather (who I could have sworn was American through and through) was a Polish-born Jew. Not long after, I overheard aunts and uncles telling stories about a family - ours - that, by all measures, should never have survived the Holocaust. A spark was ignited, and I found myself searching for answers.

  Fast forward through years of research, interviews, sleuthing around archives, and multiple trips overseas to places like Poland and Paris and Brazil, and We Were the Lucky Ones was born."

  Published travel writer with a focus on the adventure travel industry.

  Five years experience as a brand consultant, advising Fortune 500 companies such as Delta Airlines and Georgia-Pacific on creative brand marketing.
  Experience
  Author
  Self
  January 2007 – Present (10 years 3 months)
  Austin Adventures
  Freelance Copywriter, Editor & Brand Strategist
  Austin Adventures
  2007 – Present (10 years)
  For the fifth year in a row, ALA (now Austin Adventures) has been ranked a Top Tour Operator in the World by the readers of Travel + Leisure; ALA has also received top awards in 2012 by the editors of National Geographic Traveler and Outside Magazine for its groundbreaking Cuba Tours.
  The Explorer's Passage
  Freelance Copywriter
  The Explorer's Passage
  October 2013 – January 2014 (4 months)
  Launching in 2014, The Explorer's Passage offers a new, creative approach to adventure travel, combining far-flung destinations rich in scenery with the art of storytelling.
  Freelance Copywriter
  Insight Cuba
  May 2012 – September 2013 (1 year 5 months)
  Paul Gauguin Cruises
  Freelance Copywriter
  Paul Gauguin Cruises
  May 2010 – 2012 (2 years)
  Instructor
  Jae Hun Kim Taekwondo Institute
  2005 – 2010 (5 years)
  Freelance Copywriter
  Planeterra
  2009 – 2009 (less than a year)
  Freelance Copywriter
  Native Energy
  2007 – 2007 (less than a year)
  DailyCandy Seattle
  Freelance Copywriter
  DailyCandy Seattle
  2007 – 2007 (less than a year)
  http://www.dailycandy.com/seattle/article/35762/Vera-Fitness-Opens
  Contributor
  Equitrekking.com
  2007 – 2007 (less than a year)
  From Hippos to Hornbills on the Okavango Delta:

  http://www.equitrekking.com/articles/entry/botswana-_a_mother_-_daughter_horseback_safari/
  Freelance Copywriter
  Trusted Adventures
  2007 – 2007 (less than a year)
  Freelance Copywriter
  Cruise West
  2005 – 2007 (2 years)
  Phinney/Bischoff Design House
  Strategist & Account Manager
  Phinney/Bischoff Design House
  January 2006 – September 2006 (9 months)
  Freelance Copywriter
  The Silk Road Project
  2006 – 2006 (less than a year)
  Wrote journalistic excerpts for The Silk Road Project’s newsletter
  reflecting experience traveling with the Ensemble during their October 2005 Japan tour. Distributed in print and online Spring 2006.
  BrightHouse
  Thinker & Strategist
  BrightHouse
  December 2002 – August 2005 (2 years 9 months)Greater Atlanta Area
  travelgirl magazine
  Contributor
  travelgirl magazine
  2005 – 2005 (less than a year)
  Contributed "You Know You're a travelgirl If" column, published January 2005
  Skills
  NewslettersBrochuresBlogsEditingStrategic Brand PositioningCopywritingWritingJournalismPublishingBloggingBooksMarketing CommunicationsResearchIntegrated MarketingAdvertising
  How's this translation?Great•Has errors
  Education
  University of Virginia
  University of Virginia
  BA, Psychology
  1996 – 2000
  University of Virginia
  University of Virginia
  Bachelor of Arts (BA), Psychology
  1996 – 2000

• Fairfield Citizen - http://www.fairfieldcitizenonline.com/news/article/Get-to-know-Georgia-Hunter-a-local-author-who-10954940.php

  Get to know… Georgia Hunter, a local author who will speak about her book at Fairfield U.
  By Laura Weiss Published 4:45 pm, Thursday, February 23, 2017

  Norwalk resident Georgia Hunter recently released her first novel, “We Were the Lucky Ones,” and will give a talk on her book Feb. 27 at the Fairfield University Bookstore. Photo: Georgia Hunter / Contributed Photo / Fairfield Citizen
  Photo: Georgia Hunter / Contributed Photo
  IMAGE 1 OF 4 Norwalk resident Georgia Hunter recently released her first novel, “We Were the Lucky Ones,” and will give a talk on her book Feb. 27 at the Fairfield University Bookstore.
  FAIRFIELD — At a home on Martha’s Vineyard, Georgia Hunter heard tales of her family during the Second World War for the first time — a secret wedding, a woman hiking through the Alps while pregnant, fake identities to hide in plain sight, a baby born in Siberia where it was so cold the infant’s eyes would be frozen shut in the morning.
  Hunter, 21 at the time, stumbled into the conversation amongst her older relatives that had come to the Kurc family reunion from as far as Brazil, France and Israel.
  “I started overhearing these stories that were pretty mind-blowing,” she said “I couldn’t believe I had never heard them before.”
  She left feeling someone in her family had to write down the stories of her grandfather, his four siblings and his parents during World War II and the Holocaust. Hunter didn’t expect it would be her to commit them to ink, but about a decade later “We Were the Lucky Ones” debuted on Feb. 14. The Norwalk resident is set to speak about her book Feb. 27 at the Fairfield University Bookstore.
  The novel, her first, tracks her grandfather and his Polish Jewish family as they scatter at the start of World War II. The five siblings and their parents had two goals, Hunter said: to stay alive and to reunite.
  Hunter first got a glimpse of her family’s history during an English assignment to look into her ancestral past when she was 15, but it wasn’t until that Massachusetts reunion that everything really clicked. Years later when Hunter decided on a career switch, the idea of telling her family’s story came back to her.
  When Hunter raised the idea of chronicling their journey, her mother offered a binder of letters and photos she saved.
  It sat for several years before she got the courage to start with her first interviews of relatives in 2008. She traveled to Paris to sit down with family and walk the streets her grandfather strolled on the eve of World War II. She followed in his footsteps through Montmartre, where the then 25-year-old would duck into jazz clubs during the spring of 1939. The Parisian neighborhood became her first chapter.
  Her grandfather was there when war broke out. Realizing he could neither get back to Poland nor safely stay, he eventually made his way to Brazil, all the while cut off from his two sisters, two brothers and parents.
  “I realized at the reunion, his siblings each have an equally remarkable story to tell, and they really did each have their own unique story lines,” Hunter said. “Most of them scattered; many of them had no idea where the others were.”
  Traveling along ancestral paths, she went on to England, Brazil, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Italy. She searched through archives, interviewed family and toured towns and cities. Still on her wish list of visits to follow her family’s journey are Morocco and Siberia.
  With her husband, Robert Farinholt, Hunter followed her family’s story from the Polish town of Radom to Krakow, Warsaw, the Czech Republic and into Austria two summers ago.
  “It was so moving to be there and to see these places through their eyes — or to try to,” she said. Hunter aimed for her novel to offer that perspective, of her family’s experiences through the moments recounted to her.
  Hoping the book would feel “visceral and relevant,” Hunter chose to pen a novel. The basic narrative is true to her family’s actual past, but she fictionalized more colorful human details.
  Viewing the Holocaust through the eyes of her family, Jewish Europeans that survived, the tragedy also became even more relevant for Hunter, more impactful than history lessons from school.
  “When you’re learning about it in high school, the numbers are so vast it’s hard to wrap your mind around it sometimes,” she said. “For me, it really made it personal and memorable and relevant because I basically spent the better part of a decade imagining myself living through it. It’s certainly been educational and very moving.”
  She hopes her readers, too, will be able to relate on a more personal level to the horrors her family endured by understanding them through their eyes. The experience is not ancient history for Hunter, but an important time to remember and relevant now. She hopes readers feel sympathy for refugees in general and their struggles.
  “This brings it home,” she said, of the book’s focus on refugees’ experiences. “You can put yourselves in the shoes of a family that is desperate to find a safe haven. I hope it offers some perspective in that way.”
  Hunter has taken that intention to heart. She thinks about the strangers so essential to her family’s survival and tries to find ways to help refugees when she can, whether signing onto a petition or aiding refugee families relocating to her local area.
  Born in Massachusetts, Hunter grew up in Providence, R.I. before studying psychology at the University of Virginia and embarking on a career in branding and marketing. About ten years ago when she began to sift through her family’s past, she also began freelance copy writing.
  After seven years in Seattle, Wash., Hunter and her husband chose to move back east, settling on Rowayton. Her parents, Thomas and Isabelle Hunter, live nearby in Rowayton and she has cousins in Southport. The family — also including 4-year-old Wyatt — frequents Fairfield.
  “I love this area,” Hunter said. “My dream is to open a bookstore here someday.”
  “We Were the Lucky Ones” is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Books-A-Million, IndieBound, in the Kindle store and in audible form. It was also released in the United Kingdom on Valentine’s Day.
  On Monday, Hunter will speak about how she unearthed her family’s story, answer questions and read a passage from her book at the Fairfield University Bookstore at 7 p.m.
  lweiss@hearstmediact.com; @LauraEWeiss16

• Georgia Hunter Home Page - http://georgiahunterauthor.com/bio/

  About Georgia
  Georgia HunterFor as long as I can remember, I’ve loved to write. I penned my first “novel” when I was four years old, and titled it Charlie Walks the Beast after my father’s recently published sci-fi novel, Softly Walks the Beast. When I was eleven, I pitched an article—an Opinion piece on how I’d spend my last day if the world were about to come to an end—to the local newspaper. Since that debut in the Attleboro Sun Chronicle, my personal essays and photos have been featured in places like the New York Times “Why We Travel,” in travelgirl magazine, and on Equitrekking.com. I’ve also taken on the role of freelance copywriter in the world of adventure travel, crafting marketing materials for outfitters such as Austin Adventures and The Explorer’s Passage.
  In 2000, a family reunion opened my eyes to the astounding war stories of my grandfather and his family. Eight years later, armed with a digital voice recorder and a moleskin notebook, I set off to unearth and record my family’s story. I spent nearly a decade traversing the globe, interviewing family and digging up records from every possible source I could think of, eventually piecing together the bones of what would become my novel, We Were the Lucky Ones.
  I kept a blog as my research unfolded, which you are welcome to peruse. I’ve also created a list of ancestry search tips, should you consider embarking on a journey to uncover your own roots. I hope you enjoy the site, and I’d love to hear from you if you have any questions, or stories of your own to share.

• Wonders & Marvels - http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2017/02/five-friday-georgia-hunter.html

  Five for Friday – Georgia Hunter

  Interview with Georgia Hunter

  How did you come across this story? What inspired you to write about it?

  I discovered this piece of my family history at fifteen, when my high school English teacher tasked our class with interviewing a relative about our ancestral pasts. My grandfather had died the year before and with his memory so fresh, I decided to sit down with my grandmother. It was in that interview that I learned I was a quarter Jewish, and that I came from a family of Holocaust survivors. Six years later, at a family reunion, I was introduced to pieces of the greater Kurc saga—to stories unlike any I’d ever heard before. Nearly a decade would pass, however, before I gathered the courage to unearth and record my family’s remarkable Holocaust history.

  What were your main sources for your research? How did you organize everything? (That is, got any tips for fellow writers?)

  My research began in 2008 when I set off with a digital voice recorder to interview a relative in Paris. From there I flew to Rio de Janeiro and across the States, meeting with cousins and friends and strangers—anyone with a story to share. I saved all of my recorded interviews to iTunes and referred back to them frequently. The family’s narrative took shape, at first, in the form of a timeline, which I peppered with historical details and color-coded by relative to help keep track of who was where/when. Where there were gaps in my timeline, I looked to outside resources—to archives, museums, ministries, and magistrates—in hopes of tracking down relevant information. I was amazed at what kinds of information I was able to find. Once my timeline was complete, I plotted an outline and chapter summaries and from there, began the terrifying task of putting my story to paper!

  *For more tips on how to conduct your own ancestry search, you can check out the Ancestry Search Tips page on my website.

  What were the biggest challenges you faced either in the research, the writing, or structuring the plot?

  The Kurc family scattered at the start of WWII – their paths to survival spanned five continents over six years. Once I realized the (enormous!) scope of my story, the idea of telling it in a cohesive, digestible narrative was daunting, to say the least. The Kurcs’ diaspora meant that my chapters would have to be written from different perspectives. I thought long and hard on how to differentiate each of my characters, and how to convey thought long and hard on how to differentiate each of my characters, and how to convey those differences on the page in a way that would allow readers to remember who was who as they bounced between storylines. I also created a family tree, which appears at the front of the book, as a tool to help readers remember the characters and relationships.

  Every writer has to leave something on the cutting floor. What’s on yours?

  Uncovering my family history required so much digging that I was tempted to use every morsel of information I could find! That said, one element of the narrative I opted to omit out where the storylines of a handful of extended family members – great aunts and distant cousins – who also managed to survive the Holocaust. I felt it was already a lot to ask of my readers to keep track of a set of parents, five children/their significant others, and a grandchild. And so, in the end, I decided to narrow my cast of characters to those dozen or so in my grandfather’s nuclear family in order to keep the story focused – and believable.

  Hunter penned her first “novel” when she was four years old, and titled it Charlie Walks the Beast after her father’s recently published sci-fi novel, Softly Walks the Beast. When she was eleven, she pitched an article—an Opinion piece on how she’d spend her last day if the world were about to come to an end—to the local newspaper. Since that debut in the Attleboro Sun Chronicle, her personal essays and photos have been featured in places like the New York Times “Why We Travel,” in travelgirl magazine, and on Equitrekking.com. A graduate of the University of Virginia, Hunter has worked in branding and marketing and is currently a freelance copywriter in the world of adventure travel, crafting marketing materials for outfitters such as Austin Adventures and The Explorer’s Passage. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and their five-year-old son.

PW talks with Georgia Hunter: picking up the pieces
Nino Cipri
Publishers Weekly. 264.1 (Jan. 2, 2017): p34. From Literature Resource Center.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Inspired by Hunter's own quest to uncover her family history, We Were the Lucky Ones tells the story of a Polish Jewish family separated at the outset of WWII.

The novel is based on your grandfather's family's experiences in Poland during the Holocaust. Why was this a story you needed to tell?

Growing up, I had no idea that [fleeing the Holocaust] was a piece of my grandfather's past. He had chosen to put it behind him. I discovered it at this age when I was figuring out who I was and where I came from. So part of it was my personal journey in self-discovery. The other part was, the more I researched it, the more I realized that this was a story unlike any story I'd ever heard. I mean, the whole town of Radom, Poland, where my family was from, had about 30,000 Jews before the war, and less than 300 survived. For an entire family to have survived--and they didn't survive together, too, they survived scattered--was remarkable.

What originally inspired your research and writing?

During a family reunion in 2000, I wandered outside, sat down next to my aunt and decided to listen to some of the conversation, and I started hearing snippets of the greater Kurc saga. I remember thinking, how have I never heard these stories before? And how has no one ever written them down? It would be another eight years before I finally got the courage to finally set off and do it.

Can you talk a bit about your research process?

My research began in 2008.1 had one living relative who was a year old at the start of the war. Her name was Felicia. I began by interviewing her. From there I set off to interview as many relatives as I possibly could. I wove together this narrative that provided the backbone of what would become the complete story. Through the Hoover Institution at Stanford, I was able to find a nine-page handwritten account of one of my grandfather's brothers, who was sent to Siberia. The Shoah Foundation had oral histories for three of the main characters in the book.

Has this changed the way that you thought about history?

It gave me a more complete understanding of that chapter of World War II. One of the cool things about this story is because the [Kurc family] split up, over five continents and six years, you get this global understanding of what it was like at that time. The other thing that really shocked me was that, while they were struggling every day to stay alive, they were also getting engaged, getting married in secret. So I saw the historical side, but I also saw what it was like to be human--to get by day to day, holding onto these little pieces of their old lives.

We Were the Lucky Ones
Mary Ellen Quinn
Booklist. 113.9-10 (Jan. 1, 2017): p50.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
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We Were the Lucky Ones. By Georgia Hunter. Feb. 2017.403p. Penguin, $27 (9780399563089).

The Kurcs--Sol, Nechuma, and their five children, ranging in age from 21 to 31--are a prosperous, educated Jewish family living in Radom, Poland. Hunter's novel about what happens to the family after the Germans invade in 1939 is based on her own family's experiences and follows several strands. Sol and Nechuma are forced into the Radom Ghetto when their house is confiscated. Son Genek is in Lodz when it becomes part of Soviet-occupied Poland; he and his wife are arrested and sent to a labor camp in Siberia before becoming part of the Polish army when Russia switches sides. Another son, Addy, is in France when the war breaks out and manages to escape to Brazil. Jakob, Helena, and Mila make their way to Warsaw, where false papers help make the difference between life and death. Historical context is provided by the chunks of exposition that are folded into the personal stories, which are compellingly told. Amid the many accounts of Jews who did not survive the Holocaust, this novel stands out in its depiction of one lucky family who, miraculously, did.--Mary Ellen Quinn

We Were the Lucky Ones
Publishers Weekly. 263.50 (Dec. 5, 2016): p43.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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We Were the Lucky Ones

Georgia Hunter. Viking, $27 (403p) ISBN 9780-399-56308-9

Debut author Hunter excavates the remarkable history of her own family in this chronicle, which follows the journeys of a Polish Jewish family during the Holocaust. The 1939 German invasion of Poland sunders the Kurc family. Aging parents Sol and Nechuma stay in their home of Radom, along with their adult daughters Halina and Mila. Their sons Genek and Jakob join the Polish army; a third son, Addy, is stuck in France, soon to be conscripted. During the course of the war, the Kurcs are flung to distant points on the globe, from Brazil to Siberia. They work for the underground, fight battles in Italy, and are imprisoned in gulags. They stage daring escapes from ghettos, hide in plain sight in Polish cities, and, always, yearn for the days when their family was whole. V-day finds some of the Kurcs together, but the celebration is empty; they are still sundered, mourning, and directionless. The Kurc family's final triumph is not tied to the defeat of the Nazis, but to the family's survival and reunion against impossible odds. However, this is not a saga with a jubilant Hollywood ending. The Kurc family's survival is often due to nothing more than desperate luck. Hunter sidesteps hollow sentimentality and nihilism, revealing instead the beautiful complexity and ambiguity of life in this extraordinarily moving tale. (Feb.)

Hunter, Georgia: WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES
Kirkus Reviews. (Dec. 1, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
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Hunter, Georgia WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES Viking (Adult Fiction) $27.00 2, 14 ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9

Hunter's debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles--pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It's less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliche. "You'll get only one shot at this," Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. "Don't botch it." Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. "That form is a deal breaker," he tells himself. "It's life and death." And: "They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they'll need it." Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter's writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town "a total shitscape." This is a low point for Hunter's writing; elsewhere in the novel, it's stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century's worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust--a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn't been able to break free from her dependence on it. Too beholden to sentimentality and cliche, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.

Hunter, Georgia. We Were the Lucky Ones
Edward Cone
Library Journal. 141.20 (Dec. 1, 2016): p84.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Hunter, Georgia. We Were the Lucky Ones. Viking. Feb. 2017.416. ISBN 9780399563089. $27; ebk. ISBN 9780399563102. F

First-time novelist Hunter got the idea for this book in conversations with her grandmother after unearthing family history of which she'd been ignorant. Casting her tale in fictional form, she traces the fortunes of the large Kurc family from their home in Radom, Poland, just before World War II until they all make it safely to the New World via various paths during and after war's end. Their experiences include son Addy's fraught journey as a student in prewar Paris to Brazil, where he sits out the conflict. Another brother and his wife are exiled to Siberia by Soviet forces until they find their way west again. One of their sisters saves herself and her daughter from being shot in a field with a trainload of other Jews. The book's title almost gives away too much, and one wonders whether the story would have had more resonance if Hunter had written a factual account. Though the author relates some cliff-hanging episodes, their impact is marred by uninspired dialog and commentary: "Bella was still a wreck," "Her grief is larger than words." And despite the wide-ranging encounters, we learn nothing new about the Holocaust. VERDICT This nonetheless engrossing read is best recommended for those who enjoy fiction set during World War II and sprawling family sagas. [See Prepub Alert, 8/26/16.]--Edward Cone, New York

Cipri, Nino. "PW talks with Georgia Hunter: picking up the pieces." Publishers Weekly, 2 Jan. 2017, p. 34. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA478696466&it=r&asid=08227cf126b91c66cbefda8b52ffacc6. Accessed 9 Mar. 2017. Quinn, Mary Ellen. "We Were the Lucky Ones." Booklist, 1 Jan. 2017, p. 50. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479078012&it=r&asid=f492172238f039cad369671bfb1978ba. Accessed 9 Mar. 2017. "We Were the Lucky Ones." Publishers Weekly, 5 Dec. 2016, p. 43+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA475224828&it=r&asid=1cbbdf5900f8682905ce2539390746fe. Accessed 9 Mar. 2017. "Hunter, Georgia: WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Dec. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA471902032&it=r&asid=fd703310a696864a957ed1b862f0bbbb. Accessed 9 Mar. 2017. Cone, Edward. "Hunter, Georgia. We Were the Lucky Ones." Library Journal, 1 Dec. 2016, p. 84. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA472371171&it=r&asid=414417be595e09555c1b515cbef6bc56. Accessed 9 Mar. 2017.

• Dear Author
  http://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/review-we-were-the-lucky-ones-by-georgia-hunter/
  Word count: 816

  February 18, 2017
  REVIEW: We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
  JayneB REVIEWS / BOOK REVIEWSfamily relationships / Historical / Jewish characters / Jewish-faith / Poland / war / World War IINo Comments

  we-were-the-lucky-ones

  An extraordinary, propulsive novel based on the true story of a family of Polish Jews who are separated at the start of the Second World War, determined to survive—and to reunite

  It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurcs will be flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to navigate his or her own path to safety.

  As one sibling is forced into exile, another attempts to flee the continent, while others struggle to escape certain death, either by working grueling hours on empty stomachs in the factories of the ghetto or by hiding as gentiles in plain sight. Driven by an unwavering will to survive and by the fear that they may never see one another again, the Kurcs must rely on hope, ingenuity, and inner strength to persevere.

  In a novel of breathtaking sweep and scope that spans five continents and six years and transports readers from the jazz clubs of Paris to Kraków’s most brutal prison to the ports of Northern Africa and the farthest reaches of the Siberian gulag, We Were the Lucky Ones demonstrates how in the face of the twentieth century’s darkest moment, the human spirit can find a way to survive, and even triumph.

  Dear Ms. Hunter,

  The title and cover of this book caught my attention. Who is this sophisticated couple and why were they lucky? They appear to be pre-war, maybe European but the misty background looked ominous. “A novel” is on the cover but the description tells me it’s “based on a true story.” Frankly I wasn’t sure what to expect and was actually a little nervous after reading the blurb.

  Beginning in the days just before war is declared, we see most of the Kurc family gathered in their hometown of Radom, Poland. An educated, polished family of professionals, they are well respected in their circles of friends and acquaintances. Grown children are marrying and business is flourishing. One son is in France working as an engineer but his true passion is composing music. They’ve been slightly worried by the news from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia but surely that won’t ever spill over into Poland. With frightening speed, events prove otherwise.

  Within weeks, their lives are upended and the family begins to be separated. It’s hard enough for those in Poland to know what has happened to the others there but for middle son Addy, who is unable to get permission to travel across what are now war zones from France, it’s agony to have no word of his family. Soon their lives have no future – there is only surviving today, staying one step ahead in the shifting political alliances and armies that tear the country apart.

  Asides between chapters act to provide a backdrop of important world historical events. Characters know only what they would have known at the time so I was on pins and needles as I continued to read. The Kurc family will undergo the trials faced by their countrymen and fellow Jews – confinement in the ghettos, loss of their homes and belongings, midnight arrests by the NKVD, exile under harsh conditions to even worse ones, hunger, desperation, near escapes, and miraculous twists of fate.

  After VE Day, the survivors begin to pick up the pieces and search for their loved ones. In some cases years have passed since they’ve had word of the missing ones. The loss among in-laws, cousins, aunts, and uncles is staggering and almost beyond comprehension. The chaotic circumstances would seem to defy answers. Return to old lives is impossible both by choice and the realities of bombed cities and still hostile countrymen. Since the story is told chapter by chapter from the varying points of view, I knew who had survived but the ultimate reunions across the globe are astounding.

  It was only as I was reading the afterward that I realized that this is no fictionalized rendition of mass accounts of wartime survival. It was then that it becomes evident that yes, the Kurcs were – for the most part – the lucky ones to emerge from the destruction and to have found each other. B

  ~Jayne

• New York Journal of Books
  http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/we-lucky
  Word count: 799

  We Were the Lucky Ones

  Image of We Were the Lucky Ones
  Author(s):
  Georgia Hunter
  Release Date:
  February 13, 2017
  Publisher/Imprint:
  Viking
  Pages:
  416
  Buy on Amazon

  Reviewed by:
  Fran Hawthorne
  Georgia Hunter presumably loves her family and didn’t want to insult anyone when she set out to write a fictionalized account of how these well-to-do, assimilated Polish Jews survived the Holocaust.

  Unfortunately, that means her end product—the debut novel We Were the Lucky Ones—emerges as an adventure story about a set of stick figures, each one more beautiful and noble than the next.

  Genec Kurc, the oldest son, has “blue eyes, a dimple on each cheek, and an irresistible Hollywood charm.” His wife, Herta, “with her deep-set eyes and perfect lips and chestnut hair spilling in waves over her shoulders . . . looks like something out of a dream.” Meanwhile, Genec’s younger sister, Halina, was “born with an inexplicable mop of honey-blonde hair and incandescent green eyes.”

  When Genek is arrested by the NKVD (the Soviet secret police), Herta staunchly insists that “I’m coming with you.” Sixty pages later, when Halina is summoned by another set of NKVD goons, her husband, Adam, repeats the almost identical vow: “I’m going with you.”

  And apparently, throughout five and a half years of horror, not a single member of the extended Kurc family ever panics, quarrels, whines, betrays anyone, or acts selfishly.

  In the official publicity material, Hunter says that “every significant movement, incarceration, brush with death, and escape described in the book actually happened.” So even if the characterizations strain credibility, readers can happily accept the seat-of-their-pants thrills of the basic plot.

  At the start of World War Two, the Kurc family patriarch and matriarch, Sol and Nechuma, are prosperous fabric merchants in Radom, a large town about 60 miles south of Warsaw. Living with them or nearby are four of their five adult children, assorted spouses and romantic partners, their extended families, and one baby granddaughter. The middle son, Addy, is working in Toulouse, France, as an engineer.

  However, the Kurcs are soon blasted around Europe and beyond like shots from a machine gun:

  Genek and Herta are shipped in a cattle car to a Siberian slave-labor camp. Another brother and his wife manage to wangle jobs at a local factory, which is a step above ghetto misery, at least for a while. The oldest son-in-law disappears, while his wife and baby are squeezed into Sol and Nechuma’s tiny apartment in the Radom ghetto. Halina and Adam, thanks to fake IDs, eke out a risky existence as Aryans in Warsaw. For his part, Addy gets one of the last visas out of France to the presumed safety of Brazil.

  To her credit, Hunter smoothly keeps track of this sprawling cast as they move from one temporary hideout to another across five continents, and the narrative rarely flags.

  The writing, meanwhile, is serviceable. Hunter’s overreliance on clichés is rescued by occasional flares of strong sensory descriptions.

  One wife, crawling through a meadow in hopes of avoiding border guards, feels “as if she’s anchored to the earth, weighed down by her appendages, by her countless layers of clothing, by Jakob’s camera, by the muscle that clings to her bones and the sweat that coats her skin.”

  Most powerfully and beautifully, the novel conveys the family’s love for Radom. Even Addy, seemingly safe in France after Hitler invades Poland – and before France surrenders—wistfully recalls spring in his hometown, “when the domes of the horse-chestnuts bordering Warszawska Street begin to leaf, offering shade to patrons perusing the ground-floor shops for leathers, soaps, and wristwatches. Spring is when the flower boxes adorning the balconies on Malczewskiego Street overflow with crimson-red poppies.”

  Hunter also said, in the publicity material, that she chose to write a novel rather than a memoir in order to invent scenes and “connective tissue” that would “add more depth and emotion to my story.”

  Yet she failed to take advantage of the opportunities fiction offers for depth of characterization. She could have created flesh-and-blood people with faults and weaknesses—and then claimed that, after all, it was only fiction and her relatives in real life were much nicer.

  Fran Hawthorne is the award-winning author of eight books on business and public policy, including Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love (Beacon Press, 2012). She also regularly reviews fiction and nonfiction for The National, the largest English-language newspaper in the Middle East.

• Novel Visits
  http://www.novelvisits.com/lucky-ones-georgia-hunter-review/
  Word count: 752

  FEBRUARY 14, 2017

  We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter | Review

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  We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter - This sweeping debut (based on the author's own family history) follows the Kurcs, Polish Jews, as they fight to survive WWII.

  We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter (debut)
  Publisher: Viking
  Release Date: February 14, 2017
  Length: 416 pages
  Buy on Amazon

  Single Sentence Summary: As World War II ravages Poland from Germany in the east and Russia in the west, the Kurcs, a large, very close Jewish family, try to survive by any means possible.

  Primary Characters: This story is really about the entire Kurc family, too many to list. Sol and Nechuma, 52 & 50 at the story’s onset, head the family. They have five children, ranging in age from 31 to 21. Some are married. Others marry. They have one grandchild.

  Synopsis: In 1939, the members of the Kurc family were leading an unremarkable life in Radom, Poland. They were a very close-knit Jewish family who truly enjoyed spending time together. As the threats from Germany and Russia became all too real, it was evident that in order to be a family again, they’d first have to fight, in ways they’d never imagined, to survive the war. The path to survival was different for each and therein lays the story of We Were the Lucky Ones.

  Review: I’ve read a lot of World War II novels. I migh go as far as to say that I’m somewhat of an aficionado in that genre. Last fall I even did a post on “Favorite WWII Novels.” Yet even with all that background, I have never read another WWII book remotely like We Were the Lucky Ones, Georgia Hunter’s sweeping debut. Taken from her own family’s history (do not overlook the afterward), Hunter delivered a novel that was exclusively about a Jewish family from Poland trying to stay alive. There were no characters appearing for more than a few pages who were not in the Kurc family or directly connected to their survival. It was a refreshing take!

  The title of this novel is apt, for in many ways the Kurcs were extremely lucky. Yet, make no mistake about it, the Kurcs lived through horrors during the War.

  “It was the soft thud of the infant’s body meeting the earth that broke Herta, causing the numbness to give way to a hate that burned so deeply within, she wondered if her organs might catch fire.”

  They were not left unscarred, but were lucky in that they were largely able to avoid the death camps. As the truths of what was happening all around them became evident, the Kurcs were unwavering in their common goals of surviving the War and being reunited again. You cheered the Kurc family as they used any means possible to meet these goals: forging documents, crawling on hands and knees trough a muddy field, passing as gentiles, hiding a child among bolts of fabric, fleeing the continent.

  I was also a big fan of Hunter’s writing in We Were the Lucky Ones. She used several techniques that really made the story. To start, the story was told chronologically and along the way Hunter included short bits on what major events were happening in the War. This was great for overall perspective. She also moved the story along in short chapters highlighting different members of the family. This made the reader invested in the entire Kurc family. And finally, Hunter kept the story to the Kurc family, almost exclusively – no tangents, no side stories, no long-winded descriptive passages. This was a family saga at its best, bringing tears not where you might expect, but in the happy moments. If you’re a fan of World War II novels you should definitely read We Were the Lucky Ones. If you’re not, this book will make you one! Grade: A

  If you liked this book you might also enjoy:

  22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson
  The Light in Ruins by Chris Bohjalian
  The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman
  Note: I received a copy of this book from Viking and the author (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest review. Thank you!

  Disclosure: There are Amazon Associate links included within this post.

• Historical Novel Society
  https://historicalnovelsociety.org/reviews/we-were-the-lucky-ones/
  Word count: 322

  We Were the Lucky Ones
  BY GEORGIA HUNTER

  Find & buy on
  This debut novel recounts not only one but multiple harrowing tales of unlikely survival. It’s also an amazing piece of historical reconstruction, expertly translated into fiction. As Hunter reveals at the start, fewer than 300 of the 30,000-plus Jewish residents of Radom, Poland, remained alive after WWII. Her grandfather and his four siblings were among them. Learning about her family’s Holocaust past as a teenager, she set out to uncover their stories: interviewing older relatives, tracing their paths across Europe and elsewhere, poring through archives for relevant facts.

  Knowing the ultimate outcome, one may wonder whether the novel offers any suspense. In short, yes. The circumstances her characters endure are excruciatingly traumatic; that they manage to survive is thanks to a combination of resourceful planning, split-second decisions made under tremendous pressure, and random luck. Also, there are numerous other people they care deeply about, and readers will anxiously hope that they survive as well. Many chapters end with a mini-cliffhanger, which seems over-the-top initially but does heighten tension.

  The story has impressive breadth, spanning over six years and many countries around the globe as the Kurcs pursue separate quests for safety through a Nazi-darkened world. One can sense the terror faced by Mila, forced to hide her two-year-old daughter, Felicia, in a paper sack of fabric scraps when the Gestapo invades the factory where she works—and feel Felicia’s claustrophobic fear as well. Genek and his wife Herta endure near-frozen conditions in a Siberian gulag, where their baby son is born. The author’s grandfather, Addy, an affable, talented musician, leaves Paris early on, but his planned voyage to Brazil is held up, and he remains consumed by worry over his family. The novel is full of tangible details but has thriller-style pacing. Reading it is a consuming experience.

• Jewish Book Council
  http://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/we-were-the-lucky-ones
  Word count: 264

  We Were the Lucky Ones
  Georgia Hunter
  0

  Viking 2017
  416 Pages $27.00
  ISBN: 978-0399563089
  amazon indiebound
  barnesandnoble
  It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurcs will be flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to navigate his or her own path to safety.

  As one sibling is forced into exile, another attempts to flee the continent, while others struggle to escape certain death, either by working grueling hours on empty stomachs in the factories of the ghetto or by hiding as gentiles in plain sight. Driven by an unwavering will to survive and by the fear that they may never see one another again, the Kurcs must rely on hope, ingenuity, and inner strength to persevere.

  A novel of breathtaking sweep and scope that spans five continents and six years and transports readers from the jazz clubs of Paris to Kraków’s most brutal prison to the ports of Northern Africa and the farthest reaches of the Siberian gulag, We Were the Lucky Ones demonstrates how in the face of the twentieth century’s darkest moment, the human spirit can find a way to survive, and even triumph.

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