Eight part of Erika Lipez's historical drama, "We were lucky", deals with a frightening theme. The year is 1938, and the Polish city of Radom is home to the Kurtz family, which gathered together to celebrate the Passover. These are turbulent times, as wicked anti -Semitism is on the rise in Poland, and the curses initially look isolated from everyday racial policy because of their social growth. Since the Courts gather around the family table, we met every member, including brothers and sisters Halina (Eyoi King) and Adi (Logan Lerman), who talk about their hopes and dreams that pave the way for the future. Elder Mila (Hadas Haron) is excited to give birth to his first child, while Jacob (Amit Rahaw) advocates his passion for photography. In a heart rate of events, this family gathering turns out to be the last, as the curses split up with the arrival of the war.

Were "We Were Happy" a true story? It is certainly inspired by a true story, and Julu's minisers are based on the novel of the same name by Georgiadorian Hunter. Hunter withdrew from her family's experiences during the occupation of Nazi Germany in Poland in 1939, in detail how her loved ones were torn. Spending nine years exploring the story of her family's survival and weaving elements of her in her novel, Hunter wrote a visceral story, incorporating what it means to be a young Polish Jew during World War II. The author talked about this mix of history and fiction in her work during an interview with Club Babel:

"My goal in writing" We were happy "was not only to tell the story in a way that made family justice, but also allowed readers to enter the shoes of my relatives (...) and so while my narrative are Based on real people and real events, I decided in the end to afford a creative license to invent - to add those human, emotional details that I could not reveal in my research, such as what my characters and my characters were thinking Feeling. "

Let's look at how Julu's adaptation handles the difficult themes of the book and find out more about the story of the real life that informs the book and the series.

The Kurk family is directly based on the ancestors and grandparents of Hunter and their five children who separated during the Nazi invasion in 1939. Adi, who was on the verge of traveling to Paris before separation (in series), is based on Hunter's grandfather, a composer/engineer who lived in France. When Hunter first found out about her grandfather past like survivor HolocaustShe began to look at the aspects that were lost on time, such as a song music for the song she made, known as the "List". Lerman's image plays an excerpt from the "list" in the show, which creates a sweet, gentle respect for the real composer he made.

While some nuances tend to neglect during such a personal restoration process, Hunter has resolved this by expanding her research beyond what happened to her family. She detailed her process in the same interview (related above), talking about small information that falls into place to paint a picture that destroys the soul:

"Where there were gaps in my timeline, I looked at external resources - to archives, museums, ministries and judges around the world, hoping to find the relevant information. Over time, and with the help of translators, I sent questions to Polish, French, Russian and German, little by little by little collection of details of organizations near and far, including a nine -page statement hand -written by one brothers and sisters, bulky military Records for other (...) First -hand reports of first -hand reports of the first hand three relatives who have passed since then, caught on a video of the USF Joah Foundation Visual History Archive.

Enneek Kurk (Henry Lloyd-Huzz) -The Majest Brothers and Sisters in the Hunter Hunger Based, and you can read his above-mentioned nine-page statement Here. Also, a colleague from Halina's real life protected her parents by helping them get a job at the gunpowder factory with forged identities. Just as Shulu's show, brothers and sisters in real life, had to move on their struggles after being forced to separate each other.

Although the Hulu series is pretty faithful to Hunter's book, Some differences appear with dramatization and certain stories story choices. For example, the novel begins with the perspective of Adi, who is already in Paris and cannot return home for Passover. His mother, Netuma (played by Robin Weigert in the show), sends him a letter warning of tensions near German borders. Conversely, "we were happy" on Julu for a nonlinear approach, opening Halina at the Polish Red Cross office in 1945. Here, she is facilitated to discover that her brother Enneek and his family are alive after the war. After this point, we are rewinding the 1938 Passover rally. The choice to open with positive consequences, and then throw in the story helps to build a key context and establish our investment in Halina's dynamics with her loved ones.

Understandable sacrifice that the series makes comes in the form of reduced perspectives. The book, weaving in and out of the perspectives of a large, scattered family is able to make room for an alternative POV -A of the same incident. Since the series cannot place every POV, it roots in two main perspectives - Adi and Halina - and puts its experiences at the forefront to place the larger image. This, again, is a change that works for the benefit of adaptation, as it allows events to flow and connect better, while properly emphasizing the fate of every core affected by the war.

In addition, some aspects of character have changed to generate larger shares. Examples include Halina's relationship with Adam (Sam Woolf), which is invested in more conflicts and tension, and Halina plays a more active role as part of the movement of underground Polish resistance.

In the end, surviving curses again celebrate the Passover and complain the people they lost. Loans reveal that more than 100 descendants of Kurtz are alive today.