With each passing episode, We Were the Lucky Ones gets bleaker and more excruciating to watch as we hope the Kurc family survives the Holocaust. It’s not easy to capture a real-life tragedy, but it’s especially hard to depict a hopeful situation in the right way because it could seem simply unbelievable. Biopics are not always perfect, though they can be fascinating (for lack of a better word); however, We Were the Lucky Ones makes you feel like you’re in Poland, watching in desperation as the Jews are slaughtered in front of your eyes. The Hulu show follows the Kurc family, whose resolve is perfectly visible through the show. In episode 6, we finally get an update on Jakob and Bella, Sol and Nechuma, and, of course, Halina and Adam.
Spoiler Alert
Do Mila and Felicia escape the ghetto?
At the end of episode 5 of We Were the Lucky Ones, Mila asked her mother to sew her a new coat because she planned on getting out. In episode 6, we see her execute this plan and get Felicia out of the ghetto, slowly but surely, by blending in with the crowd of German women at the end of the ghetto. We then flash forward a year later to the A.V.L. warehouse, where Bella is working as a seamstress. She’s doing just fine for herself, but her parents are 2 kilometers away in another camp. She’s been wanting to visit them, but it’s not happened just yet. Bella and Jakob have been writing to each other, but things look much bleaker on Jakob’s side, even though his letters make it seem otherwise. In his letters, he claims that things are okay in the ghetto, and Bella trusts that his photography skills are able to keep him alive. At least there is still love between them, even if they have been apart for a year.
In the meantime, Mila becomes a nanny for a German family in Warsaw, thanks to Halina. Felicia is being raised at a convent school with her hair dyed blonde. Mila is doing just fine as a nanny; however, as Halina likes to say, she’s got “Jewish eyes.” All Halina wants is the safety of her family, but if Mila shows everyone how sad she is, it’s like tattooing the word “Jew” on her forehead. Halina and Adam are trying to get Sol and Nechuma transferred from the Pionki factory because Sol’s back is acting up, and they’re too old for the place. In the meantime, we see Sol trying to shovel coal and struggling to do so. Still, Sol and Nechuma keep their spirits up when they see each other.
At a party in the house that Halina works for, she catches a man’s eye, and he decides he wants her to work for him. It’s a small interaction, but it shakes Halina up for sure. However, things get worse when she gets home, and the landlady asks her if she’s a Jew. Apparently, she has sources who’ve told her that Halina and Adam are Jews and they need to get out. Halina rushes home, and Adam is able to convince the landlady that he’s not, in fact, a Jew by taking his pants off (he’s got a good disguise).
What Happens to Bella’s Parents?
Jakob is made to take pictures of naked women for the Germans, but he’s good at what he does and requests a soldier to give him a pass to see his wife. The soldier is unbothered by Jakob’s requests, but in the meantime, Bella learns from an old friend that her parents are going to be sent off to the gas chambers. At the moment, the gas chambers are simply rumors to most Jews. Bella doesn’t understand what he’s telling her implicitly, so he makes it clear that she needs to get her parents out of there. However, when Bella does get to visit them and asks for her parents to get out with her, they refuse because they’re tired of running. Bella can’t stand the thought of losing them, that too after she’s already lost her sister in the same manner, but they want her to survive, and they know she has a better chance without having them to worry about. On the other hand, Adam and Rachel discuss the “death camps.” Adam doesn’t know where his own parents are, but they are discussing getting Halina’s parents out of the factory because they will be the first to go due to their age.
Mila and her German master discuss children. The German woman even asks Mila to give her a haircut, and Mila has no choice but to oblige. Of course, nobody knows she has a child, but she pretends that she’s talking about her youngest brother when talking about how children are not trouble at all but make the world a better place. I suppose the entire episode is centered around parent-child relationships. Halina makes it to the factory herself and buys her parents’ safety. The soldier stops Sol from getting out because he’s supposed to be more expensive, so Halina gives away a family heirloom amethyst to save him. She takes them to a safe house, where she promises that payment will come in every month because the family has already been checked multiple times for harboring Jews. Sol contemplates the fact that his children are out there trying to keep him safe, so he feels inadequate as a father. Nechuma reminds him of what he had told her when their first child was born: “Children make you the most scared, but they also give you the most strength.”
In the meantime, the Radom ghetto gets cleaned up, and Jakob is saved thanks to his papers and his young age. He manages to go to the warehouse that Bella is in and pretends he’s been sent to take pictures there. On the other hand, Mila gets assaulted by her German master with a glass to the head. This happens because her son was told that he should play the Jew in a game by the other kids, and Mila didn’t tell her. The woman is worried because she thinks her son will be targeted as a real Jew. With a bleeding head, Mila cleans up the glass while the lady apologizes, claiming that the place and the people are making her strange. Mila stands tall and faces her without averting her eyes or accepting her apologies. She then goes to the convent to behold Felicia from afar. Nobody notices them saying “I love you” to each other because Felicia knows how to stay out of trouble, and Mila feels satisfied.
At the end of We Were the Lucky Ones episode 6, Jakob and Bella are reunited, but knowing her parents were killed off and even hearing the sound of the gunshots from 2 km away has left Bella devastated. When it comes time for the warehouse to be “cleaned up,” a friend of Bella’s tells Jakob to follow her to escape. Bella is unable to pull herself together, but Jakob reminds her that they are each other’s family, and he made the mistake of leaving her once, but he won’t do it again. They cut the barbed wire and escape hand in hand at the end of the episode.
