This gem of historical fiction is based on a real incident which makes it all the more a fascinating read. I read this book in record time because I simply could not and did not want to put it down.

Issac Schuller is a watchmaker who was grabbed by the gestapo as he was leaving his shop and was loaded into a cattle car and taken to Dachau. Issac was singled out to work at Senior Officer Becher's home first fixing the grandfather clock, then repairing the watches and jewelry stolen from the prisoners. He works in an old shed used by the gardener and soon discovers a loose floor board which leads to a journal of sorts written by someone with the initials J. A. L. Another prisoner, Anna, works as a domestic in the home of Becher and his sadistic wife, Liesl. The Bechers have a son, Friedrich, who had to return from boarding school and they find him a nuisance and are often mean to him. There are multiple narrators and a nonlinear timeline in this book but everything meshes together very nicely. This was a very sad read at times but also there was a lot of human kindness and compassion shown by the prisoners to one another.

Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC of this very sad but yet very compassionate book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for a copy of "The Watchmaker of Dachau" in exchange for my honest review.

A warning that this book is difficult to read in places as well as graphic. It is based on a true story. The story is told in several voices. It starts and ends in Cornwall, England in 1996. In between we have Isaac Schüller in January 1945, Friedrich Becher (aged 11), Anna (aged 29), J.A.L. from May 1944, Anna from February 1944, J.A.L. from June 1944, July 1944 and August 1944, Anna from March 1945, Isaac from April 1945, J.A.L. from September 1944.

Isaac was a watchmaker but his shop had been closed for over a year. He still went there to look at his grandfather's pocket-watch which he hid under the floorboards. He engraved it - "Isaac Schüller, remember me, January 1945". His wife Hannah had passed away 10 years ago. It's January 1945 and Isaac feels that if they had not taken him away yet, perhaps he has been lucky. But that day his luck runs out. He is taken away and then singled out by a Kapo for not having brought any belongings to the camp. All he had was in his pocket - a leather pouch with tiny silver and gold instruments, miniature screwdrivers. He tells them that he is a watchmaker and uses them to fix watches, clocks, music boxes, jewelry, puzzle boxes, toys.

Friedrich is a kind boy who doesn't really seem to be liked by his parents. He's not allowed to have friends, not allowed to ask questions - especially not why all the rooms on the opposite side of the house to his room are always locked.

Anna works at the home of Strumbannführer Becher. She is walked to and from the camp every day by Schmidt, who acts like he is lord of the manor. Greta is a kind, older, local woman who cooks for the family and she always gives Anna coffee and food. She also arranges for Anna to have a maid's uniform to wear instead of her camp clothing.

Isaac is first brought to the house to repair a grandfather clock. Liesl Becher doesn't want him working in the house, so he is set up in the cold garden shed to work. Greta is kind to him as well and always has coffee and bread for him. One he has the clock working, he is told to fix Friedrich's toy train set. One day he finds a loose board in the shed and underneath are pages from a diary written by someone with the initials J.A.L. When he can, Isaac reads the pages - sometimes with Anna.

Friedrich is told to stay away from Isaac as he might hurt him. Friedrich has other ideas because no one in the house seems to want him around. His father is away a lot and his mother is always "hysterical" so he often sneaks into the shed to talk to Isaac.

As the Americans draw ever close to Dachau, Becher wants Isaac to work on 2 cars that he brought home. There is frenzied activity in the house as furniture is packed up to be shipped. Friedrich thinks they are moving back to Munich or Berlin but he sees a label on a crate marked "Argentina" and he asks Isaac where that is.

As they start evacuating the camp, preparing everyone to march before the Americans can arrive - Isaac adds his own notes to the diary pages of J.A.L. Isaac gives Friedrich the address of his shop and tells him to go there when he's older. "18 floorboards from the door, walk due north, the floorboard with the gold-tipped nail, lift the floorboard and there would be a treasure for Friedrich alone." Friedrich decides that Isaac has been his bestfriend, even better than Otto his friend at school had been.

As the pieces from the past and present collide, Isaac tells Anna what to do when they start evacuating them camp - hopeful that it will help her survive.

The last chapter truly places the missing puzzle pieces where they belong and the story is complete. All the questions that remained are answered.

A truly moving book, wonderfully written by Ms. Schabowski.

This is an awesome book. It is a historical fiction based on a true story. It is about two Jewish people and an eleven year old German boy. They found each other and though they had different backgrounds,they found love and friendship.
Strong characters, that you love. You feel their pain, you cry for them and you cheer them on.

This story is beautifully written and is very heartwarming. I love the way it focuses on the individuals and who they were, not just the suffering, keeping the memory of the individuals alive. This story brings honour to their life’s and memories by not just focusing on the atrocities that happened in Dachau but also reminding us of the people who they really were and what was really lost to us, not just numbers but real people with real families, real life’s and real dreams. This book manages to perfectly capture the human element and what can be achieved even in the worst times if people are kind and have hope. A really great historical and emotional read.

THE WATCHMAKER OF DACHAU bu CARLY SCHABOWSKI is a sensitively told story of hope in spite of horror and friendship and love amidst hatred and cruelty. The book is well written and the characters are unforgettable.
The story takes place in 1945 when the Nazis, in their hurry to cover up the atrocities that are taking place at Dachau, are trying hard to kill off the inmates through starvation, exhaustion and torture before the Americans arrive to set them free.
Isaac, the gentle watchmaker, is taken to Sturmbannfürer Becher's house where he mends a grandfather clock and other things, mostly watches, that have obviously been stolen from the inmates. He meets Anna, an inmate who works in the house and has to put up with Liesl Becher's rudeness and hysteria and her husband's unwelcome advances, and Friedrich Becher, a boy of eleven whose toy train engine he fixes. The three of them form a strong bond of friendship in spite of the madness that is going on all around them.
I do not want to tell you any more for fear of spoiling things for you. It is a heart wrenching but also heartwarming read, truly inspirational, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is important that we do not forget this period in history where man's inhumanity towards his fellow man was at its worst..
I was given a free copy of the book by NetGalley from Bookouture. The opinions in this review are completely my own.

The Watchmaker of Dachau
by Carly Schabowski
Bookouture
Historical Fiction
Pub Date 20 Jan 2021 | Archive Date 20 Jan 2021

Carly Schabowski's novel is a powerful, moving story of World War II. Have tissues nearby as you experience the life of the characters. I will recommend this to our historical fiction readers. Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for the ARC.

5 stars

Carly Schabowski’s powerful novel, ‘The Watchmaker of Dachau,’ is an epic, moving story based on a true account of World War Two. Due to be published January 20th, 2021, this novel is a must-have for anyone who loves historical fiction.

Isaac Schuller, 60, was on his way home from his watch repair shop one January night in 1945, when he was grabbed off the side of the road and placed on a train heading for Dachau. When he arrived, repair tools were found in his pocket, leading the receiving officer, Sturmbannfuhrer Becher, to believe that Isaac could be useful at his private residence. During the day, Isaac is holed up in a shed on Becher’s property, fixing things that need to be repaired. At night, he is walked back to the camp.

Anna Reznick is a 29-year-old Jewish girl who, like Schuller, fills a place of usefulness in the Becher home. She is a maid by day and returns to Dachau camp at night. When she meets Isaac, her days have more purpose and in return for this gift, she sneaks him food from the house.

Friedrich, Peter and Liesl Becher’s 11-year-old son, has been brought to their new home from his studies at a private school. He doesn’t understand why his parents brought him here. Not only have they forbidden his friend to visit, but they’ve also locked all the doors and given strict instructions that he’s not to talk to the help and only play in the side gardens. Worst of all, his parents make it obvious that he isn’t wanted and is a nuisance. One day, though, Friedrich wises up and learns how to use his mother’s sleeping pills to his advantage.

What an incredible novel of human kindness! How wonderful for people to find love and companionship amidst such suffering and in the uncertain times of 1940s Europe. Schabowski’s success is due to her meticulous research. So expertly woven into the story, readers get transported into another time and place. The best writers of historical fiction are able to make facts part of the story rather than stand out from the story. Schabowski has achieved this; I was more absorbed in the actions of her nuanced and realistic characters rather than becoming a learner of her history lesson. The thought-provoking issues she raises will stay with me forever as will the sweet little Friedrich whom I dearly wanted to hug. This is more than a story about the plight of Jewish people trying to survive Dachau. It’s about friendship, love and sacrifice and the ability of humans to rise above their shared circumstances to encourage each other. Not by any stretch comparable to what Anna and Isaac endured, but the pandemic, in our time, is bringing out the best in people as they find ways to support others around the globe and offer friendship and hope. May we always take our eyes off ourselves and look for ways to be useful. I identified with Isaac because my grandfather loved pocket watches and was always scouring antique shops to find pre-loved pieces he could fix. We’d always create a piece’s provenance and smile at our shared secret.

This five-star novel by a former journalist, now creative writing professor at Oxford University, is a must-read. You’ll find yourself grabbing tissues in this atmospheric tearjerker and wishing the last page was chapters and chapters away. I devoured it in one sitting and thought, as I turned the last page, that I must source out more of Schabowski’s novels. She’s a masterful painter of words!

Thank you to Carly Schabowski, Bookouture and NetGalley for this five-star advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

THE WATCHMAKER OF DACHAU
BY CARLY SCHABOWSKI

These Holocaust novels that are written to remember the suffering of so many of the Jewish ethnic race whose only crime they ever committed was to not be born Aryan White Germans are not written to be enjoyed but to make sure we never forget. This was an amazingly stunning book to add to the collection that are so often memorialized today in historical fiction. This one was sure hard to read at times to picture with graphic descriptions of the cruel and atrocious ways these people were treated at the hand's of the SS Officers and the Nazi regime.

This one was a real tearful read because of the crimes against humanity were so vividly rendered that I felt as if I was an eyewitness to these war crimes. I was also blown away with the everyday acts of kindnesses that these fellow prisoner's showed with their selfless acts for each other. So much compassion for the prisoners who were able to hold on to the parts of themselves that refused to let their smiles and jokes and the way they selflessly fed their ration of a lump of bread to a fellow prisoner who was sicker or hungrier than they were. There is much beauty to be found among these pages between the small acts of kindnesses that were offered to their fellow sufferers even though to do these acts of bravery could result in their getting beaten or instantly shot.

There was a Nazi Officer and his sadistic wife named Liesl who had prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp ordered to work in their nearby house. Gretta, was one such kind prisoner who always gave a young prisoner named Anna extra servings of bread and soup. Gretta was an indentured servant who was the cook who made sure that the young maid named Anna and an older gentleman named Isaac always got extra servings. Anna, oftentimes gave her extra piece of bread or her weak vegetable soup to a prisoner named Isaac whom was forced to tinker away outside in the brutal, freezing temperatures fixing watches in a rundown, dilapidated shed.

Anna discovers Isaac reading some stowed away diary pages in the form of letters to his lover found underneath a floorboard in a satchel. They are dated throughout 1944 and 1945 with the three initials J.A.L. Descriptions penned by J.A.L. of what he was forced to do to dead camp anonymous bodies is among the gut wrenching and heartbreaking part of the novel. Friedrich who is the young and innocent son of this Nazi's household is home from boarding school and he stole my heart. He had no idea that the servants/prisoners who are both kind and suffering forced to being a part of his household are being held against their will. Friedrich doesn't understand why they are working for his mother and father or where they came from. He is neglected and being lonely and bored he befriends Anna and Isaac but mostly Isaac. Whenever his parents are gone overnight he drugs the depraved overseer of the prisoners with his mother's sleeping pills so that he is free to visit Isaac and hear J.A.L.'s diary entries being read to him by Isaac.

This is one story that I will never forget for its stark beautifully rendered acts of kindness juxtaposed beside the cruelest acts that people were capable of bestowing on their fellow Human beings. I have always disliked epilogues as a writing device before reading this historical novel. The epilogue in this one particular narrative took my breath away. I would rate this emotive story 4.5 star's rounded up.
The one hope that these starving, brutally treated people whom make up for the most lovable character's with exception to the Nazi captor's and the mean overseer's who are also prisoners is the hope that the Americans are coming to free them. Will the Americans get there in time? Who will live and who will die in the meantime? Read this fast paced tale to find out and I promise that you will be moved by the collective selfless acts that some of these character's perform to help even though their situations are just as dire. The German boy Friedrich's acts of thoughtfulness and compassion to his parent's unexplained servants will steal your heart as well.
Publication Date: January 20, 2021

Thank you to Net Galley, the talented Carly Schabowski and Bookouture for providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

World War II, the Nazi death camp, Dachau. Issac is a Jewish watchmaker transported to the camp, where he awaits his fate with thousands of other terrified Jews. But because of his skills as a watchmaker, Issac’s life is spared, at least temporarily, as he is brought to the household of Officer Becher. Here Issac meets Anna Reznick, a servant of the Becher’s, and the two develop a close friendship. But love is fragile and the Nazi death machinery is fierce and formidable. Do these two people stand any chance of a happy ending. Heartbreaking, make sure you have a large box of tissues handy

This book took me by surprise. Sometimes that right book comes along just when you need it. From the very beginning of the novel, I was intrigued by the characters Schabowski had introduced and found myself wanting to know more about them. She built them up carefully and with clear intention behind each event that occurred. There was a flow to these characters that made them feel like I knew them personally, they seemed so realistic. I cannot commend her enough for the incredible way she set up each individual arc and storyline.

The plot itself was another thing that felt as if it was written with care and procession. Everything made sense, the actions and the key events lined up and delivered what I found to be an incredibly emotional, thought-provoking and heart-wrenching read. There wasn't a single moment in this book where I was bored or uninterested in what was happening, it all kept my attention and desperate to know what was going to happen next.

Overall, it was a poignant, moving read. Schabowski did a superb job of making this the right amount of hopeful, sad and eye opening. Highly recommend!