What a beautiful and heart wrenching book about family and survival during ww2.
This book for me was a real eye opener to some of the more harsher details of life for the Jewish community during the holocuast. Each page brought to light more and more details of what they Jewish community went through along with what they had to endure just to be able to survive.
Using there craftsmanship to ensure that they survived the 3 brothers showed a whole new level of bravery and what it means to be family. There one goal was to stuck together and survive the war no matter what.
I just couldnt put it down I started this book late in the evening and didn't put it down until I had read every last page.

Harry Lenga was born to a family of Chassidic Jews in Poland and he and his two brothers studied their father’s watchmaking 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.

It was enlightening to see how the Jewish population lived alongside but separate the Polish one in the early 20th century with the antisemitism that became legalized leading into the years of ww2. In the fall of 1938, Lenga was 19 and starting his career in Warsaw as a watchmaker when Germany’s forces began dropping bombs.

“I imagined that the German aggressors were the common enemy of the Jews and the Poles. This was the first incident showing me that, in this war, the Jews were going to be treated as the common enemy of the Germans and the Poles.”

Laws enacted against the Jews began immediately and Lenga recounts horrific stories even before he as sent to forced labor camps, like how he and other Jews were rounded up off a streetcar not long after the occupation, detained for hours, beaten, ridiculed, and threatened with death if they didn’t report to work. Life was restrictions, starvation, collaborators, violence and Lenga shared harrowing story after harrowing story. The Germans needed his skill and he used his trade throughout the war to keep himself and his brothers alive.

“We heard what had happened already in other towns. The Germans would empty out all the Jews from a town, load them onto trains, take them away, and nothing was heard about them afterward. We were waiting for it to happen to us, but we didn’t actually know what was going on. So, each of us chose what he wanted to believe. The pessimists tried to explain that the Germans would take those people to their deaths, that they were destroying us. But the majority—including my father—were optimists who still couldn’t believe it was possible for human beings to act like that.”

This is a biography written in the style of a memoir. It’s based on recorded interviews of the author’s father but written as though the father was narrating stories of his life. It rambled at times, with appendices, a glossary, and notes taking up the last quarter of the book, but the stories were fascinating and horrifying. The truth about what happened to these people needs to be told. It’s a shocking and a wonderful memoir.

What a truly inspirational book on the hardships and horrors faced by three brothers during the Holocaust. The events and trials they went through should be read and understood by all to learn how to prevent this type of persecution from ever happening to any person! A must read!

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Watchmakers was fascinating to read for me. This time in history is what I love to read. I am giving it four and a half stars.

This was a good book. The subject tends to be overdone, but this book is a more personal look at specific lives involved in the holocaust, Well worth a readers time.

True stories simply hit differently. Especially when it comes to heartbreaking times as it was the war. The brothers who protagonist this tale didn't know what their words would mean. How their testimony would make generations aware of what humans can do. The living proof of how important it is to not repeat the mistakes of the past, Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this story.
A family of seven growing up in Poland. Victims of segregation and hate because of religious beliefs. They hear stories of an awful man with an agenda. And find themselves stuck between hate. Little did they know that their father's profession would save their lives more than once. How being watchmakers would be more appreciated in the war than before it. A heartbreaking tale of survival, brotherhood, and how important it is to stay true to yourself. A must for anyone who loves true stories and memories of survivors.