Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

When Georgia Hunter was 15, she learned that not only had her grandfather, Eddy Courts, been Jewish, but she also learned he was born Addy Kurc in Poland and had escaped Europe during the Holocaust. She also learned that all of Addys family had survived the Holocaust, and all found each other after the war. What started as a high school project, would turn into 9 years of research and writing on the bestselling book, We Were the Lucky Ones, which is now a miniseries on Hulu, starring Logan Lerman and Joey King. In honor of Jewish American Heritage Month, we spoke with Hunter about why this story is more relevant now than ever before, how learning from history can help us all learn empathy, and how we can be shaped by our heritage. If you havent watched or read this beautiful and moving story yet, be mindful that there are spoilers ahead, so read with caution!

Why do you think that maybe it's more important that We Were the Lucky Ones was released now as a miniseries?

I set out in 2008 to unearth and record this story and I never could have imagined that it would feel so very relevant today. It's a story about what can happen when people stop seeing each other as human beings and when hate and antisemitism is left unchecked. And we're seeing that today and it's so scary, and it's so sad.The timing of it is wild. That said, what I'm trying to grasp onto right now is that at its core,my familys story is one about love and courage and perseverance. While it's set to the backdrop of the Holocaust, it's a human story told in a way that I hope audiences can connect to and relate to and kind of remove feeling like they're looking back and instead they are right there, with each of these characters and living history as it unfolds. And I think in doing that, it might help people understand a little bit about what can happen when people stop seeing each other as humans. I know for me it gave me so much hope and empathy when I unearthed it. I just hope that in watching it, it moves people in a similar way.

When we look at then and now, what can we learn by watching or reading We Were the Lucky Ones or learning more about the past?

For me personally, it challenges me to have strength and compassion in the midst or in the face of adversity. There were so many people who risked their lives to help my family. My relatives also risked their lives to help others over and over again. Well never know what it's like to be forced into that position, to make those kinds of decisions, and to have that kind of courage. But when you step into the hearts and minds of someone like Halina or Addy or Genek or Jakob or Mila, I think that helps us to understand. And when you have that understanding, it builds empathy, and I think empathy is what we need in times like this.

At 15, after your grandfather had passed away, that was the first time that you discovered that he was Jewish, as well as any of the stories that would later become part of your book, We Are the Lucky Ones. How has this shaped your Jewish identity in the present day?

I don't think my grandfather necessarily hid it from me. I don't think it was a big secret, but when he moved to the States, he was the only one of his siblings that landed in a little part of America where there were no Poles and no Jews. He was also the only sibling to marry a non Jew. My grandmother, Caroline, was Presbyterian from South Carolina. I think it was really important for him to assimilate. I wish I could ask him now the reasons. I know Judaism meant a lot to him because he would go back to Brazil where his family gathered for Passovers, even after he'd moved to the States, and he wouldn't necessarily tell my mom and her siblings that's what he was doing. He might say he was going for the birthday that he shared with Halina (his sister). He talked about his mother's challah bread often, and I know it meant a lot to him, but I just think I was too young before he kind of got sick with Parkinson's and not at the age where I was asking those kinds of questions. He was so forward thinking and charismatic and optimistic. It just wasn't in his character to dwell on the past.

It did come as quite a shock to learn at 15 that I came from this family of Holocaust survivors and that I myself was a quarter Jewish. It left me with a lot of questions and a lot of curiosity. About five years later, I found myself at a family reunion with my mother and her first cousins. She's one of 10 in that second generation on her father's side sitting around a table telling stories. And it was then that I started to hear the snippets of the Kurc family story, and I remember thinking these are stories unlike anything I've ever heard before. And someone really needs to write them down. And I didn't know that someone would be me, but I couldn't quite let the idea go. So it took me eight years to get the courage to do so.

I started flying around the world with my little digital voice recorder and my notebook, interviewing relatives trying to unearth and record the story, and I think in that process, I learned so much. Not only about how they managed to survive, but about what kind of people they were and about the faith that they carried in their hearts. And I kind of learned about the ways they carried it differently. My great grandfather, Sol, was probably the most religious of the group, while some of the family members treated it as more of a cultural identity.

To me, the stories that were passed down, that were shared, were very much about the traditions and the meals and the gatherings. It took me nine years from start to finish to write the book, which was nine years of spending time with my family members and learning about that time in history, and learning about the Jewish faith. Because again, I was coming into this with a clean slate and discovering for the first time that this was part of my roots. It has made me feel closer to the religion today, and it's made me feel more grounded in the sense that I understand why I am the way I am, as far as those traits that were passed down from my grandfather's side of the family.

How did you have the courage to research and write this story?

I honestly don't know if I'd have had the courage to write the book, if the ending weren't what it was, but, and sorry for spoilers, but its so remarkable. You just don't hear stories like that. I remember vividly sitting around the table at the reunion in 2000, and Felicia (who was just a few months old at the start of the war), looked around the table and she said, It's a miracle that we're all here today. We were the lucky ones. So that obviously stuck with me. I don't think I realized how lucky, just how very lucky, but I knew that the family was all around that table. The 10 second generation cousins were all there, I knew enough in my Holocaust studies that the odds were severely against them. They were a statistical anomaly. (Hunters family came from Rodam, Poland. Prior to the Holocaust, there were 300,000 Jews. After, there were only 300). The percentage that they made up of that 300 it's just unbelievable. But it's also not something that you necessarily want to shout from the rooftop. I know it wasn't just luck, but luck played a big part for sure. Every decision they made could have ended differently. Every single path could have ended in death, and the fact that they all ended up in Brazil, that's lucky.

You're creating education around the series and the book. What does that look like?

I think that what excites me the most is that for kids who already see the Holocaust as ancient history, I think there are going to be so many entry points into this story, especially with these young actors they all have followed. I'm going to spend the summer shaping how to bring the story into classrooms and introduce it to kids who were my age when I first discovered this. It hopefully makes it less distant than, this is just some teacher telling me about a time in history, this is the author, and when she was your age, she was learning about this. And then when she was in her twenties, she flew around the world and talked to her relatives. And it's all very relatable when there's a person in the room kind of talking about it, who's it's her own history. Especially with young people, with students, I don't want the Holocaust to be ancient history. I want it to feel relevant. I don't want kids to look back on this time in black and white or,through these unfathomable statistics. Like you can't wrap your head around 6 million. So now's the time to be bringing the stories back to life and in a way that feels relatable and relevant and modern. And I think our show really does that.

Grab your copy of Georgia's novel and check out the Hulu series.

Original post:

We Were the Lucky Ones Author Georgia Hunter Helps Us Find Empathy in the Present by Looking to the Past - Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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