Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

This was a hard book to read! I was told through one of the brothers and I had a hard time hearing about the horror these individuals went through. It was kinda slow and at times I felt like it was devoid of emotion and that slowed it down. I think it is a big thing to read and you will really have to understand that the subject matter is tough. Don’t go into this with a closed mind.

The Watchmakers
A Powerful WW2 Story of Brotherhood, Survival, and Hope Amid the Holocaust
by Henry Lenga; Scott Lenga
Pub Date 28 Jun 2022
Kensington Books, Citadel
Biographies & Memoirs | History



I am reviewing a copy of The Watchmakers through Kensington Books, Citadel and Netgalley:


Harry Lenga was born to a family of Chassidic Jews in Kozhnitz, Poland. He and his two brothers were proud sons of watchmakers. 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.



Forced to live in the most devastating conditions imaginable, where death was 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.


The Watchmakers is a compilation of a decades worth 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.



I give The Watchmakers five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

I actually was unable to finish this one. I normally love books about World War II (especially true stories), but the writing is very difficult for me to get through. Unfortunately this book was just not for me.

For more reviews and bookish post visit: https://www.ManOfLaBook.com

The Watchmakers: A Story of Brotherhood, Survival, and Hope Amid the Holocaust by Harry Lenga, as told to Scott Lenga is a memoir of the author. His amazing survival through World War II, in concentration camps, and in death marches.

Harry Lenga was born in Kozhnitz, Poland, to a family of Chassidic Jews. When the Germans invaded Poland, Mr. Lenga was in Warsaw, but managed to escape from the Ghetto to join his family. After being liberated by the US Army, Harry moved to St. Louis, MI where his family is still living.

Nowhere in Poland was safe, and the night before the Nazis murdered Kozhnitz’s entire Jewish population, Harry and his brothers Mailekh and Moishe, managed to escape. Later during the war years, the brothers were moved between several work camps, including Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Mel, and more. Amazingly they managed to survive due to their ability to fix watches (their pre-war occupation), and a good amount of chutzpah.

The Watchmakers: A Story of Brotherhood, Survival, and Hope Amid the Holocaust by Harry Lenga is a compelling and moving book. The story is written in a simple manner, just the plain truth with a bunch of dark humor mixed in.

I’m glad Scott Lenga managed to interview his grandfather before he passed away. I know what happened to some of my relatives, but that’s mostly through family stories. These types of stories must be remembered and retold. The survivors are far and few, and many didn’t want to speak about the horrors for decades afterward. It’s amazing that Mr. Lenga has survived several concentration camps, as well as death marches. He credits that with luck, as well as his ability to fix watches which allowed him better conditions than the hard labor work, much of it for the purpose of killing the workers.

The appendices, glossary, notes, and pictures are about one-fourth of the book itself. They are fascinating as well, and for me at least, it’s always a benefit to associate a picture with a person when it comes to my non-fiction reading.

I love reading stories of how people survive. The Watchmakers is a phenomenal written story. This is the story of brothers that fought through some dire circumstances to survive. They were born to a family of Jews in Kozhnitz, Poland. This book was written in a way that I felt that I was sitting with the Lenga family, listening to their stories. I felt that I got a clear view of what concentration camps were like for those there.
Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read a copy of this book. All thoughts are my own,

A tremendous story of three brothers who stuck together during the darkest days of WWII.
Scott Lenga interviewed his father and then turned them into this book.
Written in the first person, Henry re,she’s his life story and how being a watchmaker saved he and his brothers countless times.
It’s another precious a story to add the canon of Holocaust memoirs, too precious to ever be forgotten.

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 so 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.

This is a stunning, gutting, incredible read. If someone ever wants to know why we say "Never forget," point them here.

At first I was a little bummed that Scott Lenga wouldn't be the one "telling" the story, simply because his prose in the introduction is so beautiful. BUT, he's absolutely spot on that the story is deeper, more convicting, and more powerful told in his father's words/voice--the actual person experiencing it all. So, I will just have to go find other books by Scott to enjoy more of his writing voice (oh darn :D).

Harry Lenga lived quite a life, and it's captured in #allthedetail here. I particularly appreciated how vocal he was with his family and others, from early on, about his Holocaust experiences. This is definitely not the norm I've seen (and understandably so; true horrors indeed). We really do need to be vocal, and to listen to the stories of those who lived these terrible things, so that we don't forget, nor do we repeat history.

Of course, aspects of the read were entirely difficult to read (as they should be). It's not a light, pre-bedtime topic...but at the risk of repeating myself (heh), it's a necessary one. Just maybe when one is not headed to sleep.

I received an eARC of the book from the publisher via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Scott Lenga interviewed his father, Harry, for countless hours before his death for more than a decade. Scott wanted to tell his father’s story, a story that cannot be made up or trivialized. It is the story of Harry and his two brothers escape from Hitler’s advancing armies and their survival through the Holocaust. This is not an easy read.

The first chapter gives readers some background from Harry’s birth in 1919 through his twenty-first birthday in 1930 in the Chassidic town of Kozhnitz (Poland). This chapter was slow reading for me as I struggled to keep all the members of the family straight, especially using their Polish/Jewish names.

In Chapter Two, the teenage years and learning to repair watches, the conversation is easier to follow.
As Hitler’s armies invade Poland, Harry and his two brothers know that as they ca stay together, everything will be all right. The men are sent to Warsaw and interred in the Ghetto. This is followed by the German Occupation, the Kozhnitz Ghetto, the Gorczycki Camp at Wolka, the Wolanow Slave Labor Camo, the Starachowice Slave Labor Camp, Auschwitz, the Death March, Mauthausen, Melk, Ebensee and finally, Liberation by the Americans.

Harry was the leader. They stayed alive by using their watchmaking skills to repair watches in the camps. But still life was hard. The bugs, the starvations, the beatings. Every time I think I have read every atrocity I think I can, I read of something much, much worse. It is amazing the brothers survived their ordeal.

“The Watchmakers: A Story of Brotherhood, Survival and Hope Amid the Holocaust” receives 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

In The Watchmakers, Harry Lenga—born Yekhiel Ben Tzion—remembers his family’s experiences during the Holocaust. The book is written by Harry’s son, Scott, and based on over thirty hours of oral histories with his father. He details Harry’s young life, being raised in Poland as a Chassidic Jew, the Nazi takeover of Poland and Harry’s family’s time in the ghetto, then several work camps and concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau and Mauthausen. Together, Harry and two of his brothers used their keen instincts and training as watchmakers to survive the horrors of the Holocaust. Harry immigrated to the United States in 1949.

Harry’s story is a necessary one for people to read in order to understand the full effects of the Holocaust. His experience, in many ways, mirrored that of the thousands of Jewish people in Europe during the Second World War. In others, though, his experience is set apart—for example, he and two of his brothers were lucky enough to remain together throughout the whole war. They worked together to help one another survive. Additionally, Harry used his wits and his training to be able to get better jobs at several of the camps where he was placed, allowing him (and his brothers) to stay indoors in the warmth and get better food. Harry’s is, like all Holocaust stories, a story of survival in an indescribable time of evil.

That being said, I was unimpressed with the writing of The Watchmakers. At times, and especially for such an emotional topic, it felt rather emotionless. The book is matter-of-fact, with little embellishment. While that is usually a positive, I think it was missing the necessary emotion that shaped with the experiences of the Lenga family.

Despite that minor critique, this was a book worth reading, just as every Holocaust survivor’s experience should be read and understood by a wide audience.

A must read. Based on oral history and research, this is a fantastic account of Harry Lenga's experiences growing up in a Chassidic Jewish community in Poland, living through horrific conditions in Labor Camps/Concentration Camps in WWII, and life after the war. It reads like an oral history, and draws the reader in to the author's life in a genuine, open way. I thought I'd read the worst of WWII, but some of the stories in this book were shocking and nauseating at the degree of inhumanity. I loved the "co-author's note." Clearly this book is a treasure for family history reasons, but we can all learn from and be inspired by Harry Lenga.

Thank you, Citadel Press and #NetGalley for the ebook.

historical-places-events, history, history-and-culture, multicultural, jews, biography, memoir, memories, never-again, NEVERFORGET, Poland, coping-mechanisms, mass-murder, family, family-dynamics, PTSD*****

#NEVERFORGET
In some ways, this is the Polish version of the Hungarian woman and her two sisters in Lily's Promise. But this family was less advantaged before the war and gives a clearer picture of what life was like in Poland before the invasion. After was just grisly. Harry Lenga was one of the three brothers who were apprenticed at a young age to be watchmakers, and how all of them managed to survive the horrors of the Holocaust and make for themselves lives worth living for a long time afterwards and never giving up hope.
This collection of Harry's memories was compiled and put into book form by Harry's son, Scott.
Born in 1919, Harry passed away in 2020.
The appendices which cover Chassdic context and the local Rabbis, the Jewish and political groups in the area prewar, the testimony of one of their American rescuers, the meaning of many Hebrew/Yiddish words, and extensive endnotes are nearly a quarter of the book.
This is a very moving book that is needed now and in the future.
I requested and received a free e-book copy from Kensington Books/Citadel via NetGalley. Thank you

This is a book worth reading as it tells a story that grips your heart and challenges your mind. A wonderful story of survival, family, being a Jew in Poland at the wrong time and of courageousness.

This book is both easy and hard to read as it is a subject that plays with your emotions but is a book that is well written with great characters so this makes for easy reading. The truth of the story really hits home and yo just can't imagine what these people went through at such a sad and heart-wrenching time.

A great book and a highly recommended book for all to read.

Great story about survival of the Holocaust and prewar polish-jewish relations in the small town in central Poland.

Beautifully written story about how a family’s legacy saved lives during WWII. This was a very well written and easy to read book. The hard hitting subject made you love the people and want to find out what happened to them.

An important read; The Watchmakers tells of the life of Harry Lenga. Born a Chassidic Jew in Poland, Lenga lived much of his life faced with prejudice and then came the outbreak of World War Two. The book is an engaging read as Lenga's words tell of the inhumane and human aspects of the Holocaust. I couldn't put the book down.

"The Watchmakers" is a book written in first person, in the form of a diary, the result of hours of Scott Lenga talking to his father, Harry. Harry (Khil) describes his and his two brothers' fates: from childhood in a family of Chassidic Jews in the small Polish town of Kozhnitz, through his teenage years in Warsaw, but the main part of the book tells about the WWII period, when the brothers tried to survive the Holocaust, successively passing through Gorczycki Camp at Wolka, Wolanów Slave Labor Camp, Starachowice Slave Labor Camp, Auschwitz, until Ebensee camp, liberated in 1945.
I have read several books, both novels, and diaries from that period, but this diary has a special place. Harry talks about everyday life in the camps simply and poignantly. Survival depended on health, age, and finally ordinary happiness, but also on creativity and faith in survival. Many times, when one of the brothers was close to surrender - and surrender meant a quick death - Harry argued that you had to fight to the end, not let the Nazis win. The fight was, for example, making sure to be shaved at Sunday assemblies, because unshaven, sick-looking people were selected for immediate execution. The brothers' great advantage was their profession - as great watchmakers, they were used by the Germans to repair watches, usually stolen from Jews, and such work allowed them to spend time in a closed, warmer room for at least a few hours.
The book is simply addictive. I followed and "cheered on" the brothers, so to speak, proud of Harry's ingenuity, but also just cried at some of the harrowing pages.
Scott Lenga writes: “As far as I can remember my dad insisted that something like the Shoah could happen again in America or anywhere else”. This brought to mind the words of another Auschwitz survivor, Marian Turski, who on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, said: “Auschwitz did not fall suddenly from the skies. It was approaching pitter-pattering slowly in those tiny steps until it happened. Do not be indifferent”.
And this is perhaps the greatest lesson we can take from this beautiful book.

Harry Lenga's life from 1919-1949 is a horrific tale of survival in war time Poland. Told in the first person, his riveting memoir is written by his son, Scott Lenga from countless oral histories and a wealth of documentation.

Born into a Chassidic town of Kozhnitz, Poland, Harry is a survivalist and is focused on keeping his family alive and together. An inspiring young man, he takes every opportunity to help his brothers Mailekh and Moishele in the various ghettos and concentration camps. Trained as watchmakers by their father, this skill saves their lives countless times. To get out of hard labor he offers to fix a guard's watch and this one skill helps him and his brothers survive.

It's a remarkable life during the worst time in history but Harry never gives up hope. The book carries us through the Lenga's family after the war and their life choices. I highly recommend this fascinating personal story and how the effects of war touched normal people.

A riveting and historic account of the lives of Harry Lenga and his two brothers (Mailekh and Moishe) is chronicled in “The Watchmakers” by Scott Lenga; son of Harry. This is a story of abiding brotherly love during a most horrific time during the Nazi takeover in Poland and the terrible true stories of the concentration camps.

Harry is Scott’s father and one of the three brothers who managed to stay together during the atrocities that they endured. The brothers’ story is filled with heroism, sacrifice, and an abiding belief that they will be OK. Harry and others provided interviews and recollections of his experiences to his son who compiled the stories of his father and uncles. Harry who passed away to 2020 co-authored with Scott.

Heart-wrenching, as a descriptor, does not do the story justice. These Chassidic Jews from the small town of Kozhnitz in Poland overcame so much even through much loss and pain…physical and emotional. Their story is screaming to be told and the “never again” mantra must be embraced by humanity.

Scott Lenga has done an exceptional job of providing not only the story of the brothers who learned the watchmaking skills from their father but through various appendices filling in the rest of the background including language and geography.

Thanks to #NetGalley for providing the ARC for my review.