We Were the Lucky Ones -- Take 2

We all made an exception to our Postal Book Club page limit to read We Were the Lucky Ones, which was on all of our lists.

Despite my initial excitement about this book (due in no small part to the family tree at the opening), it took me a little while to get going on in.  In fact, about 50 pages in, I took a break to read The Girl in the Spider's Web.  In retrospect, I believe this needed break was due more to the pandemic than anything else.  There was a lot going on in the process of trying to figure out what was the right thing to do, getting myself set up to work from home, figuring out whether S would be able to work from home, whether it was even safe to buy groceries, and all that other stuff.  I needed a little light reading while I figured all that out.

Once I finished Spider's Web and went back to this one, I couldn't put it down.

It is the story of the Kurc family, Jews living mostly in the Polish city of Radom out the outbreak of World War II in Europe.  The story forks as the family is broken up, both voluntarily and involuntarily.  The chapters rotate through different family members, tracking them through the war years as they lose touch with each other and desperately try to stay alive.  It is a surprisingly gripping story, with each rotation to a different family member bringing different horrors and new perspectives on what survival can be, no matter how meager the means.

It is based on the story of the author's family, which makes it all the more fascinating.