The Watchmakers: A Powerful WW2 Story of Brotherhood, Survival, and Hope Amid the Holocaust

Harry Lenga · Scott Lenga

Aug 2022 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Barry Abrams

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8 hr 33 min

Unabridged

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About this audiobook

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.

About the author

Harry Lenga was born in 1919 to a family of Chassidic Jews in Kozhnitz, Poland, where his father taught him the watchmaking trade that would save their lives during the war. In 1949, he immigrated to St. Louis, Missouri, where he married and had three sons. Lenga died on January 2, 2000 at the age of eighty.

Scott Lenga is the son of Harry Lenga. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, he holds a BA in economics from UC Berkeley and a law degree from UCLA. In addition to writing and speaking about his family's experiences during and after World War II, he serves as a corporate and intellectual property lawyer.

Barry Abrams has narrated and produced audiobooks for a variety of publishers. Since 2012, he has also hosted and produced ESPN's In the Gate podcast. Based in Danbury, Connecticut, Barry engineers and calls live webcasts of his son's ice hockey games.

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