A mother is who a child turns to in times of suffering. This is congruent between different families because mothers often take responsibility for caring for their children. This often includes dealing with issues at school and looking out for the child’s future by feeding them vegetables and teaching them right from wrong. However, for a European Jewish mother during the time of World War II, the difficulty of looking out for a child increases exponentially. The consequences of a mother’s mistake could easily be as horrific as the death of her child. Georgia Hunter acknowledges this in her novel We Were the Lucky Ones by making Mila struggle daily with how best to care for her young daughter Felicia. In the novel We Were the Lucky Ones, by Georgia Hunter, Mila is conflicted about whether to look out for Felicia’s present or future self - she is conflicted about being honest with Felicia, asking Felicia to engage in dangerous actions, and keeping Felicia near her, which helps to explain that sometimes the lesser of two evils is the best option there is.

In the first place, Mila is conflicted between being honest with Felicia, which could scare her, or sugarcoating terrible situations, which could harm Felicia’s safety. As Mila is Jewish, she and Felicia live in a ghetto during World War II. In ghettos, there was a requirement to have a job, with the punishment for unemployment being death. When the Nazis are coming to Mila’s workplace, Mila knows that she needs to hide Felicia because Felicia is too young to work and will therefore get killed if she is found by a Nazi. When hiding Felicia, Mila tries to find a balance between looking out for Felicia’s future by making sure that Felicia takes the necessary actions to remain safe, but also looking out for Felicia in the present, making sure she does not have to cope with any more fear than is absolutely necessary. This leads Mila to attempt to portray their situation as a game, but ensuring that Felicia knew exactly what to do. For example, when directing Felicia on the actions she must take, Mila instructed Felicia to “‘remember the day we played hide and seek’ . . . steadying her breath and 

trying not to rush her words. She doesn’t have much time, but Felicia must understand exactly what Mila was about to tell her. ‘Remember, you hid here and pretended you were a statue?” (Hunter 137). By asking Felicia to recall a game they had played, Mila is attempting to portray their situation as a game. This is to spare Felicia the fear that telling her the terrifying reality about the deadly circumstances they are in could cause Felicia at this moment. Mila is also desperate to look out for Felicia’s future by keeping Felicia safe from the Nazi soldiers. To protect Felicia’s future, Mila ensures that Felicia knows exactly what she must do. Mila is struggling to find the balance between ensuring Felicia takes the necessary actions to remain safe and ensuring Felicia isn’t too terrified in the present. In this scene, the author characterizes Mila as a very thoughtful person, helping the author to portray that mothers during World War II were tasked with the difficult decision of telling their children enough to ensure they remain safe, but also not enough to harm their mental health with unneeded terror. Mila is conflicted about how best to take care of Felicia, not sure if she should express the seriousness of their situation, or make a game out of what Felicia needs to do. This helps the author to convey that the lesser of two evils is often the only choice there is. Mila also has a hard time deciding whether to tell Felicia that she believes her father to be dead. Mila believes that telling Felicia now will probably prevent more harm down the road for Felicia, but Mila doesn’t want to upset Felicia now either. This leads Mila to think, “how can she tell this to Felicia? How can she explain to her almost four-year-old daughter that she might never know her father? ‘You must prepare her,’ Nechhuma has said over and over. ‘You can’t keep her hopes up’” (Hunter 214). Mila is torn over how best to spare Felicia pain. Mila doesn’t want to dash her four-year-old’s hopes for her father, but she also knows that the longer Felicia believes her father is alive, the harder it will be when she finds out that he had not survived. Through the sadness that Mila has when she wants to keep Felicia happy and innocent of the reality of war but can’t, the author characterizes Mila as a caring character. This helps the author to portray that even though mothers are tasked with the extremely difficult task of getting their children through World

War II alive, they also could not abandon the tasks of a mother during non-war times (keeping their children as innocent of atrocities as possible). Knowing that Felicia still believes her father to be alive pulls Mila in two different directions - attempting to spare Felicia pain now and sparing her pain in the future, which helps the author to portray that the lesser of two evils is often the only choice there is. Ergo, Mila is pulled in two different directions when deciding how much of the devastation of war to tell Felicia, and how much to keep from her. 

Moreover, Mila is conflicted about asking Felicia to engage in dangerous actions that could save her life if they work out, but could take her life away if they go sideways. For example, when Mila hears of a train that is supposedly transporting Jews to America, she signs right up to try to get Felicia out of the ghetto. After traveling on this train, Mila is horrified to find that this train was actually a trap and those on board are forced to dig their own graves before they are shot. However, Mila will not let this happen to Felicia. After much debate, Mila finally decides that Felicia needs to run in front of the armed soldiers to another lady, towards the danger. This harms Felicia’s safety at the time but gives Felicia the best chance to survive the entire encounter. Mila was torn in two different directions - not wanting to send her daughter towards the danger, yet wanting to give Felicia the best chance to survive - telling Felicia that “I want you to run to her, and pretend she’s your mother’ . . . all the parts of her that are a mother clawing at her throat, begging her to change her mind. But she can’t” (Hunter 200). So Mila has two devastating options - she can simply obey the soldier’s commands and keep Felicia away from danger at the present, or she can have Felicia run towards the armed men, and to another woman, pretending this woman is Felicia’s mother. In doing this, she is jeopardizing Felicia’s safety at the moment, but she is also giving Felicia the best chance to survive. The fact that Mila knows to ask Felicia to run towards danger as it was the only way to get away from danger helps the author to characterize Mila as an intelligent character, helping the author to portray the vast cleverness that mothers had to possess in order to help their children to survive World War II. Mila has a difficult time deciding whether to have Felicia run in front of ruthless, 

armed officers, but ultimately has to choose between two devastating decisions, which helps the author to

portray that sometimes the less of two evils is the best option there is. Another example of this is when Mila knows that she needs to get Felicia out of the ghetto that they have called home for the last few years because the Nazis deport everyone unfit to work to concentration camps. Felicia is too young to work, which makes it extremely dangerous for her to live in the ghetto, as simply being seen by a Nazi could result in her death. Therefore, Mila organizes an escape attempt. While Mila has completed the necessary preparation for this escape attempt, she is still having a hard time deciding whether to go through with this attempt to free Felicia from danger, or shy away from the immediate danger so she doesn’t risk her daughter getting killed right then and there. This leads Mila to “contemplate for the thousandth time the consequence of a failed escape. Have I lost my mind? She wonders. Is it worth the risk?” (Hunter 220). Trying to escape the ghetto could lead to Felicia’s death, but if the escape works, Felicia wouldn’t have the constant risk of death in the future. This leads Mila to agonize over the best course of action, helping the author to portray that sometimes the lesser of two evils is the best option there is. This inability to commit to an action when her child’s safety is on the line, even when she’s already completed the necessary preparation to put her plan into action helps the author to characterize Mila as an indecisive character which helps the author to portray how difficult it was for mothers to make decisions concerning their children during World War II as it could affect their survival. Ergo, Mila is torn in two different directions when deciding whether to ask Felicia to partake in dangerous activity that, if successful, could save her life, helping the author to portray that sometimes the lesser of two evils is the only choice there is.

Most significantly, Mila is torn in two different directions when deciding whether to keep Felicia near her to be able to protect Felicia in the present or send her somewhere safer, alone. For example, Mila knows how unsafe the ghetto is for Felicia and so tries to smuggle Felicia out. Unfortunately, Mila is unable to escape 

with Felicia and is just as scared of not being around to personally ensure Felicia’s safety as letting Felicia

reside in the hazardous ghetto. When Mila is deciding to sneak Felicia out of the ghetto without her, Mila “cried

into a clenched fist . . . as petrified of leaving her daughter in someone else’s care as she was relieved . . . anything had to be safer than the ghetto” (Hunter 190). Mila knows that the ghetto is extremely dangerous and, in attempting to make sure that Felicia is safe in the future, feels it is necessary for Felicia to escape the ghetto. However, this desire is conflicted with Mila’s desire to remain near Felicia to personally ensure Felicia’s safety in the present. Therefore Mila has an extremely difficult time with this decision, helping the author to portray that sometimes the best choice is not a good choice; it is simply the better of two terrible options. Through this unwillingness to put her child’s safety in other people’s hands, the author characterizes Mila as a judicious character, which helps the author to portray how vigilant a mother had to be during World War II as they had to be very careful about who they placed their trust in. Additionally, even after acting upon these gut-wrenching decisions, Mila is still not released from the agony of trying to decide what is best for Felicia. For example, Mila has this continued internal conflict when she walks by the Chuch that she has sent Felicia to in order to keep her safe as Mila debates the quality of that decision. Mila knows Felicia is safer in the Church, and Felicia will not have as large a risk of being killed by a Nazi in the future when she is staying at a Church. However, Mila is still not comfortable with separating herself from Felicia and giving up the opportunity to personally ensure that Felicia remains safe in the present. When Mila sees Felicia at the Church without her, Mila notices that she was “fighting the urge to . . . sneak her [Felicia] back to Warsaw” (Hunter 271). So Mila is unsure of her decision to leave Felicia at the Church without her, even though the Church is so much safer than living with Mila. Mila is uneasy about her decision because when she is separated from Felicia, she is unable to personally protect Felicia, which helps the author to portray that sometimes the best option has to simply be the lesser of two evils. This prolonged agony that Mila experiences over her decisions allows the author to characterize Mila as a 

character who carries the world on her shoulders. This helps the author to portray how difficult of a role a 

mother was for the Jewish during World War II. Ergo, Mila has significant internal conflict when deciding if she should keep Felicia close, or send her somewhere safer, alone. This helps the author to convey that often there is no good solution to problems - the choice often has to end up being the lesser of two evils.

As can be seen, Mila is torn between looking out for Felicia’s present and future as she is conflicted about being honest with Felicia, asking Felicia to engage in dangerous actions, and keeping Felicia near her, which helps to explain that sometimes the lesser of two evils is the best option. Being a mother during any time period carries a lot of responsibility, as mothers are often responsible for the well-being of their child. However, as a European Jewish mother during World War II, the decisions that Mila makes for Felicia have so much higher stakes, which is why Mila is so conflicted about her choices throughout the novel. A wrong decision could have horrifying repercussions.