Hulu/Disney+ trailer:

I know this show is a year old, but an e-mail put me over the top, I decided to check it out and I highly recommend it, I’d like to think everybody would watch it, but not everybody likes a Holocaust drama and not everybody has Hulu or Disney+.

So… There was a book, back in 2018. A million seller. The attendant hype told us that a woman found out that her relatives were Holocaust survivors and ultimately wrote this thinly fictionalized book. People loved it, not that the highbrow reviewers were on board, but having read so many true stories of that era, I was not up for anything that was made up.

And then last year the miniseries came out. And the initial reviews didn’t resonate, but a relative told me it was great and it would come across my transom now and again, but a couple of weeks back someone I don’t know insisted I watch it and the cumulative effect got me to dive in. And I went down the rabbit hole for eight episodes.

Now this is TV Holocaust. What I mean is in big screen Holocaust dramas it’s all about the look and feel. Figuring if the visuals are right you’ll suspend disbelief and get into it. But at no time are you watching “We Were the Lucky Ones” and not thinking it’s TV. The accents alone…which are far from perfect. And everybody speaks English, unlike in real life. HOWEVER, the emotions…this is about as good a depiction as I’ve seen. What it was like to feel the walls closing in, being hated and abandoned with no options.

You’re going to think this story is too unbelievable to be true, but I was stunned after the fact to find that almost all of it was. When you’re done I point you here for a comparison of the show and reality:

“How Accurate Is ‘We Were the Lucky Ones’? History vs. Hollywood”: https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/we-were-the-lucky-ones/ 

Watching made me feel more Jewish. Now let me say, it’s a rare friend who is actually a believer, but there are these rituals that we’ve partaken of from youth that we don’t think twice about, but when you see them documented…

I guess in December we’re all implored to please come home for Christmas… Well, Jews are implored to come home for Passover, and Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur too. Over the years memories are built via seders. There are inside jokes, searches for the afikomen, arguments about the afikomen… Little kids trying to substitute wine for grape juice. The Four Questions… Jews have been doing this for millennia.

And the New Year and the Day of Atonement… Funny how so many non-Jews think Hanukkah is a major holiday. Actually, it’s quite minor, but it coincides with Christmas and little kids have gift envy and…I guess it’s another way we’re separate but equal to the rest of the population.

Now I’ve been thinking a lot about the Israel/Gaza conflict and I think it’s different if you’re a boomer as opposed to someone younger. You see we grew up with concentration camp survivors in our communities. With numbers tattooed on their arms. I always wondered how they could march forward, but Benny the butcher did…that’s what he was always referred to as, “Benny the butcher,” that’s what he did, cut meat.

So you’ve got this Jewish family, solidly middle class, with a son studying engineering in Paris, coming home for the High Holy Days, and then he cannot.

Borders close. The Nazis invade.

Where does that leave you?

They take your house, they put you in the ghetto, you lose touch with your family and it’s hard to maintain your optimism.

You can feel the fear. That’s what makes the series so great. Bombs nearby. People disappearing. And seemingly everybody from the Germans to the Russians just following orders. Some escape to Palestine, but most thought it would never come to this, but it did.

There’s a visceral quality that you’ll resonate with if you’re a Jew, certainly a boomer Jew. When you realize your possessions are meaningless. When you see people packing suitcases for no reason. When you see people bribing others just to survive. You’re on your own. And the odds are not good. There were 30,000 Jews in Radom, Poland. A few hundred survived the war.

If you’re a dedicated fan of Israeli TV you’ll recognize Moran Rosenblattt as Herta. She is always good. And Lior Ashkenazi as the patriarch. And even Michael Aloni from “Shtisel” as Selim.

And Robin Weigert, who was so great as Calamity Jane in “Deadwood,” plays the matriarch…she keeps the family together.

But it’s hard to put yourself in their situation and keep your chin up. Luck played a big factor. But in order to survive you also had to break the rules. That’s something in the offing in America, if it gets really bad.

Then again, if you’re Jewish, there’s one place you can go…

Israel.

Especially when people are marching in the U.S. chanting “Globalize the Intifada.”

Watch this.