The Watchmakers: A Story of Brotherhood, Survival, and Hope Amid the Holocaust by Harry LengaMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
| Review | This is a challenging book for me to review. The subject matter is one that I've never paid that much attention to except for what we needed to learn in school. I have no idea why I chose this ARC, but it must have been something/someone who wanted me to know more about these atrocities. Or maybe Karma? This story is told in a very even almost unemotional way. There was no histrionics in the telling-just plain simple truth. Don't get me wrong, there is some humor mixed in with the horror, but it is very dark humor. So not only is this a history of being a Jew at this time and the horrors of the camps, but it is also a story of what optimism can do for a person. I'm going to take this wisdom to heart. The voice of this historically specific book was spot on-I could see in my mind's eye Mr. Harry Lenga sitting in front of me telling me his horrible story. I could feel him. This brought all the horrors of Auschwitz and Treblinka to the fore. I could only read this book in brief spurts, or I got a bit over-emotional. Learning about the Chassidic Jews in Kozhnitz, Poland, was an education. Understanding the fate of Jews and others in many other bordering countries was eye-opening for me. My education has been sorely lacking. If I have one complaint is that I would have loved to see the timeline of England and America during these horrid years and what they were doing to stop this atrocity. Apparently, via my research, there wasn't much they could do. Quoted from https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/ "The United States entered World War II in December 1941, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. By 1943, the American press carried a number of reports about the ongoing mass murder of Jews. Although the United States could have done more to aid the victims of Nazi Germany and its collaborators, large-scale rescue was impossible by the time the United States entered the war." For more information on Mr. Lenga, see this link - https://stlholocaustmuseum.org/oral-h... and also - https://stljewishlight.org/arts-enter... Please don't ignore the footnote numbers. I did thinking that they wouldn't work on my Kindle, but sadly I found out too late that they do work. *ARC provided by the publisher Kensington Books/Citadel Press, the author, and NetGalley. | |
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SYNOPSIS: "Told through interviews with his son, watchmaker Harry Lenga's extraordinary memoir of endurance, faith, and a unique skill that kept three brothers together--and alive--during the darkest times of World War II.
"Inspiring. Exhilarating. Astonishing. An epic tale of brotherhood, ingenuity, and survival." --Heather Dune Macadam, International Bestselling author of 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz "A truly extraordinary book." --Damien Lewis, #1 international bestselling author Harry Lenga was born to a family of Chassidic Jews in Kozhnitz, Poland. The proud sons of a watchmaker, Harry and his two brothers, Mailekh and Moishe, studied their father's trade at a young age. Upon the German invasion of Poland, when the Lenga family was upended, Harry and his brothers never anticipated that the tools acquired from their father would be the key to their survival. Under the most devastating conditions imaginable--with death always imminent--fixing watches for the Germans in the ghettos and brutal slave labor camps of occupied Poland and Austria bought their lives over and over again. From Wolanow and Starachowice to Auschwitz and Ebensee, Harry, Mailekh, and Moishe endured, bartered, worked, prayed, and lived to see liberation. Derived from more than a decade of interviews with Harry Lenga, conducted by his own son Scott and others, The Watchmakers is Harry's heartening and unflinchingly honest first-person account of his childhood, the lessons learned from his own father, his harrowing tribulations, and his inspiring life before, during, and after the war. It is a singular and vital story, told from one generation to the next--and a profoundly moving tribute to brotherhood, fatherhood, family, and faith. "Deeply moving." --Jesse Kellerman, bestselling author "Vivid and compelling." --Christopher R. Browning, Frank Porter Graham Professor of History Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of Ordinary Men."
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