We Were the Lucky Ones

Halina is in her cell, exhausted from lack of sleep. She was unable to sleep the night before, with even more screams and sobs than usual coming from surrounding cells: “The misery is suffocating; it’s as if at any moment, it will envelop her” (322). Nearly four months have passed since Halina’s apprehension. Over that time, she has heard continual gunfire and screams. Cellmates have vanished, and the guards have issued regular beatings. Unfed, Halina is starving and weathered.

Two of Halina’s cellmates whisper that the guards have been acting strangely, which Halina has noticed as well. The interrogator who tortured and questioned Halina has disappeared. The guards who bring their thin soup seem rushed and nervous: “There are rumors that the Germans are losing the war. That the Red Army is entering Warsaw” (323). Halina wonders if Adam, Mila, Jakob, and Bella, are still in Warsaw. She also wonders if Adam found Franka and her family.

The cell door opens and a guard calls Halina out. Instead of heading to the interrogation room as usual, he leads her up a stairwell and to the office of a prison administrator. Halina believes she is about to be executed. Instead, the German official hands her discharge papers. He explains that they have finally located Herr Den, who confirmed Halina’s identity. The officer tells her, “It appears a mistake has been made” (324). This meager apology enrages Halina, but she remains silent.

Free to go, Halina stands and whispers, “Thank you,” but in her mind, she is speaking to Herr Den. Halina collects her belongings and goes to a washroom to change. The mirror’s reflection shocks her, as her face appears bruised and cut.

As she walks away from the prison, Halina realizes that there are no Germans on the streets. At a newsstand, she reads that the Soviets have captured Warsaw and the Germans are retreating from Kraków. Halina is cheered, thinking that perhaps the war will be over soon. She sets off to try and find Herr Den, to thank him and ask for a loan: “Just enough to pay for some food, and for her passage back to Warsaw, where, she prays, she’ll find her family intact” (326).

Halina and Adam are driving to the Górskis’ house. Halina was overjoyed to find Adam, as well as Mila, Felicia, Jakob, and Bella, safe in Warsaw. However, the news of missing loved ones—Franka and her family as well as Adam’s parents and siblings—saddens her.

Halina is frightened when they reach the Górskis, as the house looks abandoned. Halina fears something terrible has happened to her parents: “It’s been seven months since she has been able to deliver the Górskis their money, since she last saw her parents, and it is everything she can do not to fear that the worst of her nightmares have come true” (328).

Albert answers the door, surprised to see Halina, and tells them to come in. Halina looks around the room for any sign of her parents. Albert realizes she is afraid, so he opens the crawl space, quietly calling to the Kurcs: “And then, they emerge. First her father, then her mother, squinting as they climb, stooped at first, from the Górskis’ crawl space into the brightly lit den” (329). Nechuma falls into Halina’s arms and Sol embraces them both. Sol sees Adam, who greets him as “Pan Kurc.” Sol laughs and says that Adam can call him Sol.