SPOILER alert: This post contains spoilers from “Warsaw,” the sixth episode of “We Were the Lucky Ones,” now streaming on Hulu.
For the first time since World War II started on their doorstep in Poland in 1939, Nechuma and Sol Kurc are not living under the same roof.
At the start of Episode 6 of Hulu’s Holocaust drama “We Were the Lucky Ones,” based on Georgia Hunter’s novel, the Polish couple says goodbye to their eldest daughter Mila (Hadas Yaron) and young granddaughter Felice, who make a daring escape from the Radom ghetto by blending in as German citizens thanks, in part, to a coat made by Nechuma that’s deemed so stylish it couldn’t possibly be worn by a Jew. A year later, in 1942, Nechuma (Robin Weigert) and Sol (Lior Ashkenazi) have been moved to the Pionki Gunpowder Factory outside Warsaw thanks to their daughter Halina (Joey King). While initially meant to be safer than the increasingly perilous living conditions in the ghetto, Nechuma and Sol are now subject to work details that test their spirits in new ways.
It’s a stark difference from the couple’s circumstances up to this point. While constantly at the mercy of the aggression and uncertainty of Nazi occupation, they remained together no matter where they were living. But in the factory, they sleep in separate quarters and meet only once a day to relay messages from their children.
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Speaking to PvNew, Weigert says her seamstress character’s motivation in life has always been to nurture, and witnessing her husband’s wilting health during their brief meetings is a call to action.
“In the factory, I’m just so terribly worried for him,” Weigert says. “It is interesting, because there is still some romance between us in that moment we meet. I kiss him, and I don’t know that I do that anywhere else in the series. I pour that energy into him in his broken-down state, and there is something about being torn apart that also strengthens that element of a relationship.”
Fortunately, their time in the factory is limited, after Halina brokers another tenuous but successful deal to get them released and placed in a secluded housing situation. Despite briefly reuniting with their daughter during the release, the Kurcs can’t bear to say goodbye to yet another child when she drops them off at their third housing assignment in as many years. In a soul-baring scene, Sol expresses a powerlessness in not being able to help his children as they help them. But again, Nechuma is there to bring him back from the edge.
Weigert spoke with PvNew to break down the heart-wrenching episode: how she found the opposite of a “death energy” in Nechuma’s story, the way her co-star Ashkenazi showed her tenderness in the factory scenes — and what upcoming moment “went roaring right through me.”
The title of this series lets audiences know there is a light at the end of the tunnel for this family. Did that change how you approached capturing Nechuma and her family’s story?
I see it as being more than a light at the end of the tunnel. It is an incredible journey for these characters to take, because they all grow so much. When in a situation of such adversity, they are challenged to rise to the occasion, all of them, and I think everyone of my children –– I call them “my children” –– comes into a version of adulthood that they never would have attained without the difficulties of this passage.
It is a story of hope for more reasons than they happen to be the lucky ones. It is a story of hope because they find access to aspects of themselves that they didn’t probably know they had.
Nechuma is ingrained in her children’s lives, despite how far flung they are, as the war stretches on. Addy (Logan Lerman) has the handkerchief from his mother, Mila has the coat with hidden pockets. Did you recognize that role she plays for them?
That makes me think, in particular, of my relationship with Mila, who struggles so much in the beginning with just motherhood. What she can do to stop her baby from crying is such a huge crisis in the beginning of this story. If you think about how impressively she grows into the role of mother over the course of the story, I feel like Nechuma stands behind her with kind of a guiding hand at the base of her spine. She is that way with all of her children at every opportunity.
There is a way in which she stands as an anchor and kind of a guide for them, but only to the extent that they ever need something to lean on. She is reaching for them always, and misses them so deeply from the core of her being. But her pride comes from the ways they are able to stand up and meet the occasion. They astound her; they astound this woman.
And because she had a great attachment to giving these gifts — like the handkerchief, and sewing things into a coat — these important details, there was this item I kept close to my heart that was to remind me of Genec [Henry Lloyd-Hughes], her eldest child. I had other little things with me that kept the children close even when far away and I, as Nechuma, didn’t know where they were. That’s part of how I worked on the character.
Nechuma and Sol spend so much of the early episodes confined to living spaces, first their home and then someone else’s. What was it like to find the restlessness and the anguish of not being able to do more while their children are out of reach?
For my character, her organizing principle is nurturance. She is never without something to do. But Sol, who has an inner mandate to protect and provide, is rendered much more impotent by the journey he is on than I am by mine, in an interesting way. I am never without someone to nurture, and in Episode 6, it is Sol that I am nurturing.
His spirit is so broken by his circumstances. I don’t know if you can tell, but they did a great job with the hair and the makeup, because the character has some kind of boot blacking in his hair to make himself appear young and hearty. But his body is breaking down. These characters are our age, mid 50s, but that was old then. He is just breaking down. He is the tenderest, most wonderful grandparent. He has had a wonderful role to play in the life of his children and his granddaughter, and yet even that is gone now. But when all else is gone, I can still nurture my husband, and I think that is a great gift to Nechuma.
What is so heartbreaking about this episode is seeing Nechuma and Sol forced to work in a factory and living in separate quarters. They only meet once during the day to embrace and wish each other well until they can meet again tomorrow.
In the factory, I’m just so terribly worried for him. It is interesting, because there is still some romance between us at that moment. I kiss him, and I don’t know that I do that anywhere else in the series. I pour that energy into him in his broken-down state and there is something about being torn apart that also strengthens that element of a relationship. There is a comfort in always being together, it’s why Esther Perel wrote “Mating in Captivity.” But there is also a challenge to staying alive in a marital relationship.
I wrote letters to all of my on-screen kids at the beginning of this process of the series. To Halina, I wrote that she might be resisting Adam [Sam Woolf] because she might not want another relationship like her parents’. That she might want a really romantic one. But I let her know in that letter that behind the scenes, unseen by them, our relationship is still very, very good. And I think you see a little tincture of that energy in the factory. But it is in a sad context because I am kissing him to remind him of something.
Did you and Lior Ashkenazi talk about how you would play that factory moment?
Lior and I were not big talkers in that way. I am a big talker, if left to my own devices. Part of it was because he is Israeli and, while it’s not a language barrier, the language that he would be speaking isn’t the one we share. But he does have an incredible language that is non-verbal. That was a scene where I remember being quite cold on that set and, in his beautiful big paws, he took my hands, rubbed them and blew on them. It just touched me so much, because I could feel what a good father and husband he is.
At the end of the shoot, I met my character’s real granddaughter. This beautiful old woman, with a warm, round face, came to the Málaga portion of our shoot, and I learned from her that there was a year where her grandmother Nechuma was very sad, and I asked her why. She said she had lost husband and her son Genec in the same year, and I tell you, I had this massive reaction and became awash in tears like I had just been through the death of my own husband. What came back to me in that moment were memories of Lior’s tenderness. It was imprinted in my body, the sweetness of this person. But it came to me like I was remembering a person who had died.
What keeps Nechuma going? She is the nurturer for her whole family, but what do you think props her up?
I think if you have a strong enough intention, it is a motor, and kind of engine for your life. And she intends so strongly for this family to be reunited. She doesn’t really have the tools to make it come about on her own, but she is reaching for it with her heart always — and that is opposite of a death energy. It is such a life energy, wishing for something that passionately.
So often people speak about the sacrifice of motherhood. All the things people sacrifice to be mothers. But I think within this story, I felt in my bones the gift of motherhood. How it gives a person a reason for being, a purpose in life, and a place to put that love. She was born to be a mother. She is born to do this.
What can audiences expect from the final episodes?
The miracle of it all. I mean, what are the odds? How they find their way is extraordinary. For me, for Nechuma, what remains in store was so unexpected. There is a scene that wasn’t written until much later in the project of trying to go back to the family home and discovering what is and isn’t there. That one went roaring right through me. Inviting that in brought with it a white-hot rage, and a deep sense of clarity.
Home is where the family is. I think that has had to be a part of the diasporic experience of Jews for many millennia. This idea of home can be located where the family is, and this family is a great example of finding that in a very true way over the course of a lot of hardship. Their home is in each other. That’s a difficult note for me, but it matters when we are together and that is what Nechuma is reaching for throughout all of this.
