Ripon Public Library

The watchmakers, a story of brotherhood, survival, and hope amid the Holocaust, Harry Lenga & Scott Lenga

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 276-304) and index

individual biography

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index present

non fiction

The watchmakers

bibliography

1313484164

Harry Lenga & Scott Lenga

a story of brotherhood, survival, and hope amid the Holocaust

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. 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

Childhood in the Chassidic Town of Kozhnitz (1919-30) -- Teen years and watchmaking (1931-38) -- Coming of age in Warsaw (October 1938-September 1939) -- German Occupation and the Warsaw Ghetto (October 1939-May 1941) -- Kozhnitz Ghetto (June 1941-September 1942)-- Gorczycki Camp at Wolka (October 1942) -- Wolanow slave labor camp (October 1942-June 1943) --Starachowice slave labor camp (June 1943-July 1944) -- Auschwitz (July 1944-January 1945) -- Death March, Mauthausen, and Melk (Late January 1945-April 1945) -- Ebensee and liberation (April 1945-October 1945) -- Postwar Europe (October 1945-March 1949) -- Afterword / Scott Lenga -- Appendix A: My search for Chassidic context / Scott Lenga -- Appendix B: The tale of Laizer Yitzkhak Wildenberg -- Appendix D: Jewish religious and political groups in prewar Kozhnitz -- Appendix E: Testimony of Robert Persinger, the US Army Tank Commander who liberated Ebensee

adult

Watch makersStory of brotherhood, survival, and hope amid the Holocaust