Herta Seifert, Bella Tatar, and Halina Kurc, all three women, made it safely to Lvov, the region of Poland that was occupied by the Soviet Union. They believed that they would be able to live peacefully there, but eventually they realized that the Soviet Union government was no better than the Germans. Yes, it was true that the Soviet Union soldiers didn’t kill the Jews according to their whims and fancies, but still, they made sure they went through hell during their stay there. Law and order were followed as per convenience, and the Jews from Poland were made to live in deplorable circumstances. We saw in the previous episode of We Were the Lucky Ones that Genek was taken into custody by the NKVD, though the grounds for calling him the “enemy of the state” were not at all justified. So, let’s find out what happened with Genek and his siblings and if they were able to overcome all the obstacles that came their way.
Spoiler Alert
Where was Genek taken?
Genek was called by the NKVD, and he was told that because he hadn’t mentioned his hometown in his application, he was being treated as an enemy of the state. Genek told them that he was from Poland, but still, the officers took him into custody, and he was taken away from his family. In We Were the Lucky Ones episode 3, we got to know that though the Soviets did not kill the Jews, they tortured them in similar ways as the Nazis. Now, this is not our personal speculation, but this is what we deciphered from the narrative. Herta made a decision to go with her husband, and for three weeks, the couple travelled in deplorable circumstances and finally reached Serbia. In Serbia, they were told that they would get a place to sleep and food to eat, provided they worked and followed all the orders. They were told that the nearest village was 10 kilometers away, and that would be a waste of their energy and time even if they tried escaping from there. Genek and Herta, together with others, toiled hard, and they made sure that they didn’t come under the radar of the authorities. Genek knew that his wife was pregnant, but he still couldn’t request that the authorities let her rest. Not doing work came at a cost, and in that matter, the Soviet Union officers were as bad as the Nazi soldiers. The climate was harsh, and Herta didn’t even know if she would be able to have a baby. But they didn’t have any other option, and they had to fight every day in order to survive. The moment they entered Siberia, they were told that they would never get to see Poland again in their lives. When all the POWs heard those words, they felt as if their world had shattered, but still, they had a glimmer of hope that probably one day they would get to go back to their homeland.
Was Herta able to give birth?
Herta’s condition was worsening, and in the absence of Borys, the pharmacist, she didn’t know how she would deliver her baby. Genek realized that he had no option but to go to the commandant and request that he at least send a doctor to look at his wife’s condition. But the commandant was as brutal as any German soldier. He was busy playing a game of cards, and so he told Henek that he didn’t have time to listen to his request. When Genek insisted, he bluntly denied his request and, in fact, ordered his soldiers to teach him a lesson. That Soviet Union commandant had the audacity to tell Henek to bring proof of the fact that his wife was pregnant. Henek told him that they wouldn’t provide him with a doctor, and their in-house pharmacist had succumbed to his illness, so he wouldn’t be able to get them any medical certificates. World War II showed us what humans are capable of. It showed us that, given the opportunity, a human could turn into something worse than a demon in no time. That man rejected Genek’s plea even when he knew that his wife could die due to complications arising out of her pregnancy. Herta finally gave birth to a baby boy, and the dictatorial regime made sure that Genek didn’t get the full payment and food for that day. Genek begged, cried, and told them that they were violating the law of the land, but still, they didn’t listen to them and did what they wanted. Herta said something that, for me, described the kind of circumstances the Jews and the common people would have gone through during those times. She was elated about the fact that her boy survived for two full days. She considered it a privilege because she knew that the life expectancy of any child born in such a camp was not even one day.
Did Addy reach Brazil?
Addy got to know that there was a ship leaving from France for Rio de Janeiro, and he desperately wanted to be on it. He knew that the cruise was probably his only chance to reach Poland, and that is why he was even more desperate to be on it. He got to know that there was a Brazilian diplomat named Dantas who was very generous and who gave people visas to escape from France. Addy tried his luck, and he got a ticket for the ship named Alsina. He met Madame Lowbeer and her daughter, Elisabeth, on the ship, and it didn’t take him long to fall in love with the latter. The ship took a detour, and firstly, it took a halt at the Vichy-occupied Dakar, Senegal. Only the first-class passengers were allowed to get down from the ship there, and that’s why the other not-so-privileged passengers felt that they would have to do something before they were pushed towards their fateful end.
At the end of We Were the Lucky Ones episode 3, there were two developments that took place: the first was that Addy and other passengers like him were asked to get down from the ship at Casablanca, and secondly, Halina was taken into custody by the authorities, probably because they realized that she was stealing things from the lab. In the upcoming episodes, we will get to know if Halina, Addy, Genek, and Herta are able to survive the catastrophe or if, like the majority of Jews, they became victims of their circumstances.
