Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 30, 2024

Watching We Were the Lucky Ones is an excruciating experience, and thats the good news. The potent miniseries is about the inhumanity and brutality of the Nazis during World War II. Its about a Polish family pulled apart, scattered to the tidal waves of 20th-century history. Its about people straining to keep their spirits hidden, to guard against futility as the war persists. Following the eight-episode story of the Kurc family had better be difficult, or We Were the Lucky Ones would be an utter failure.

There is a theme of hope hovering over this devastating series, too, with the title and its ironic claim providing a consistent tinge of optimism luck! even when the action onscreen calls for none. We know all along that this particular family, from Radom, Poland, will fare better than some 90 percent of Polish Jews, all dead by the end of the war. But the blows keep coming nonetheless, as the unimaginable becomes a reality over and over again. At first we see the Kurcs parents Nechuma (Robin Weigert) and Sol (Lior Ashkenazi) and their five adult children celebrating Passover in 1938, blissfully unaware their world is about to be shattered, affectionately teasing one another around the table. By the end of the following year, their forced fragmentation has begun, with some going to fight, some trying to stay put, and one Logan Lermans Addy, the artsy one yearning to be a successful songwriter stuck in Paris.

Episode by episode, each phase of Nazi savagery imposed on the Kurcs and other Jews is given full treatment. Very little is abbreviated, even while the larger story periodically jumps ahead in time, ending in 1945. The terror begins with vague rumors of the ill treatment of Jews, followed by the arrival of troops, random shootings, home evictions, ghettoization, starvation, grueling factory work, agonizing questions about what to do with young children, Soviet abuse, attempts to escape on foot or hide in basements, and, in some tense scenes, the dangerous decision to pretend to be non-Jewish. No Jew eyes, one Jewish character urges another as they try to pass as non-Jews. The meaning: Dont let your sorrow fill your face and give you away.

When youre telling a story set amid mass murder, the risk of viewer detachment is high. One of the strengths of We Were the Lucky Ones, brought to TV by Erica Lipez of Julia and The Morning Show, is that we get to know the Kurcs some better than others and become emotionally involved as they weather each new wave of cruelty. They are based on author Georgia Hunters real ancestors, whom she fictionalized in her 2017 novel of the same title, and the cast brings them to life admirably, especially since there are so many of them when spouses and small children are counted.

Joey King is a standout as Halina Kurc, the poignant center of the story. She brings warmth and authenticity to Halina, a fighter who keeps the image of a reunited family alive even when its most unlikely. Her complex romance with Adam (Sam Woolf) during the war works well, as they try to stay together despite everything working against them. King and Lerman, who is also moving, play the sibling characters we get to know best, even while they spend most of the series apart. Lermans Addy cant get back into Poland and eventually tries to get to Brazil, but he and his fellow boat passengers end up trapped in Nazi-sympathizing Dakar.

The other siblings Mila (Hadas Yaron), Genek (Henry Lloyd-Hughes), and Jakob (Amit Rahav) are given less depth, and fewer specifics, but still register emotionally across the series, which premieres Thursday on Hulu. We Were the Lucky Ones covers a lot of ground, and there are moments when you might forget where this character is now, and where that character just came from. But that occasional sense of disorientation doesnt weaken the series, as it plows forward, tragedy after tragedy, the portrait of a world broken at its core.

So yes, the miniseries is challenging, and steeped in heartbreak, and unrelenting. But it joins a growing inventory of important, eye-opening, memorable, and timely TV takes on the Holocaust and World War II. Ultimately it is as rewarding as it is harrowing.

WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES

Starring: Joey King, Logan Lerman, Amit Rahav, Hadas Yaron, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Robin Weigert, Lior Ashkenazi, Marin Hinkle, Moran Rosenblatt, Michael Aloni, Sam Woolf

On: Hulu. Premieres Thursday.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at matthew.gilbert@globe.com. Follow him @MatthewGilbert.

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Hulu's 'We Were the Lucky Ones' a harrowing Holocaust drama - The Boston Globe

Category: Holocaust
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