When Georgia Hunter was 15 years old, she discovered that she came from a family of Holocaust survivors. Years later, she embarked on a journey of intensive research, determined to unearth and record her family’s remarkable story. The result is the New York Times bestseller, We Were the Lucky Ones, a gripping saga that follows the Kurc family as brothers, sisters, parents, and children scatter across continents at the start of the Second World War, determined to survive, and to reunite. Georgia will present an illustrated backstory about her decade-long quest to put her family’s history to paper, revealing the extraordinary discoveries she made along the way—about her ancestors, her own identity, and the resilience of the human spirit.

We Were the Lucky Ones is Georgia’s first book and spent over four months on the New York Times bestseller list. It has been translated into 16 languages, and selected as a top pick by Harper’s Bazaar, the New York Post, People Magazine, and Audible. It won the fiction category for the 2018 Connecticut Book Award and has been optioned for a television limited series.

Georgia has loved to write since she was a child, growing up in rural Massachusetts. Her debut publication was an op-ed written at age 10 for the Attleboro Sun Chronicle. She graduated with distinction from the University of Virginia in 2000, and has lived in Atlanta and Seattle where she’s worked as a brand strategist and as a freelance copywriter in the field of adventure travel. She now lives in Rowayton, CT, with her husband and two sons.

Arranged by Bob McGroarty

Bryan Hooper’s notes on the talk:

Georgia Hunter took us through her nine-year journey researching the history of her Polish-born grandfather and his five siblings who scattered around the world as WWII began. Her grandfather never talked about his experiences to Georgia, but after his death in 1995 she was sufficiently intrigued and curious to want to learn more from her grandmother about their story, and ultimately embarked on an exploratory journey to discover the fate of the dispersed Kurc family that culminated in the writing of her book, “We Were the Lucky Ones,” published in 2017.

There are no better words to describe Georgia’s quest than those she ascribed to the survivors themselves about their own lives, that the story is one of courage, perseverance and love. Her travels and the culmination of her efforts are better described in her book than these few brief notes, but you should watch the video of her presentation at: https://youtu.be/eLA0H-n8BnI. In particular, note the reminiscences of some of our own DMA family, and you will appreciate the emotions that Georgia’s talk evoked, and resolve to read the book to determine the ending.