The Watchmaker of Dachau

by Carly Schabowski

Genres: Biographical; Cultural Heritage; Historical Fiction; Jewish Fiction; War & Military; Women's Fiction; 20th Century Romance

Synopsis

An unforgettable novel of human kindness, inspired by an incredible true story. Snow falls and a woman prepares for a funeral she has long expected, yet hoped would never come. As she pats her hair and straightens her skirt, she tells herself this isn’t the first time she’s lost someone. Lifting a delicate, battered wristwatch from a little box on her dresser, she presses it to her cheek. Suddenly, she’s lost in memory… January 1945, Dachau, Germany. As the train rattles through the bright, snowy Bavarian countryside, the still beauty outside the window hides the terrible scenes inside the train, where men and women are packed together, cold and terrified. Jewish watchmaker Isaac Schüller can’t understand how he came to be here, and is certain he won’t be leaving alive. When the prisoners arrive at Dachau concentration camp, Isaac is unexpectedly pulled from the crowd and installed in the nearby household of Senior Officer Becher and his young, pretty, spoiled wife. With his talent for watchmaking, Isaac can be of use to Becher, but he knows his life is only worth something here as long as Becher needs his skills. Anna Reznick waits table and washes linens for the Bechers, who dine and socialise and carry on as if they don’t constantly have death all around them. When she meets Isaac she knows she’s found a true friend, and maybe more. But Dachau is a dangerous place where you can never take love for granted, and when Isaac discovers a heartbreaking secret hidden in the depths of Becher’s workshop, it will put Anna and Issac in terrible danger… A gorgeously emotional and tear-jerking read set during World War Two. Perfect for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, We Were the Lucky Ones and The Alice Network. What readers are saying about The Watchmaker of Dachau : ‘ Beautiful and heartbreaking… pulls at the heartstrings… breathtaking in its beauty… Nothing I can say in my review can possibly do the justice this book deserves. I can only say to grab yourself a copy and experience it for yourself. A definite 5 star read.’ Confessions of a Bookaholic, 5 stars ‘ Affecting, heart-breaking and powerful tale… haunting, atmospheric and intensely dramatic tale that will shock, devastate, enthral and captivate readers… a superb novel I won’t forget in a hurry.’ Bookish Jottings ‘A book that put me through the emotional wringer… a beautiful and emotional read, a powerful story that begs to be read… so thought-provoking that it lingers after you have put it down.’ Sharon Beyond the Books ‘ I haven't read anything as touching or heartfelt as The Watchmaker of Dachau in years… incredible… made me smile & shed happy tears.’ @bookworm.britt ‘ Powerful… an epic, moving story… 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… a masterful painter of words! ’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars ‘ Beautiful… captivating and hopeful yet tragic and devastating. It hooks you from the very first page… putting it down is something you won’t be able to do… highly recommend.’ @toreadistobreathe, 5 stars ‘ I need to dry my eyes now after reading this book… a deeply profound book that was deeply moving… one I will not forget.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars ‘ Amazingly stunning… a real tearful read… so vividly rendered… one story that I will never forget… took my breath away.’ Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars

Release date: January 20, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

The window was open, letting the cold winter air seep into the bedroom, chilling her as she lay asleep.

She woke, her nose cold, and pulled the covers over her head. She could, she knew, climb out of bed and simply close the window, yet she had never closed it, not even when it rained, or when it snowed and ice appeared in spider-web patterns on the glass. It was the freedom she loved – to make her own choice of whether to have the window open or closed. It was silly, but it had become such a habit – almost a compulsion – and she could not let it go.

Eventually, she turned in her bed to face the window, allowing the covers to slip away from her face. The room was a muggy grey that came with an early winter morning, when the light was late to find the earth, and purple and grey snow clouds muffled any sun that could find its way through.

It was time.

She shivered, not from the cold but from the realisation that it was actually going to happen, and she would have to face it, face them all and let them see who she once was.

Bracing herself, she swung her legs out of bed, as elegant as a dancer, and flexed her toes to get the blood moving. Bit by bit, she dressed herself in a slim cornflower-blue dress which nipped in at the waist, and gathered her hair into a loose chignon. She stood, staring at herself in the full-length mirror. She squinted at her reflection, seeing herself as a young woman again. Then she stopped and opened her eyes fully, to see herself as she was – the fine lines on her face and the wisps of grey in her hair showing the time that had passed, the minutes, seconds even, each part of her had been marked by time.

She slicked on some light pink lipstick and rouged her pale cheeks, concluding that she was done. As she was about to leave the bedroom, her right hand suddenly gripped her left wrist, feeling the soft skin under her fingertips. How could I forget?

She opened her jewellery box and took out a gold watch, the gemstones in the strap winking dully in the light.

Fastening it, she looked outside.

It had started to snow.

The sky looked as though needles had been sent through velvet, causing pinpricks of light to glitter from above. Isaac watched the stars, waiting to see if one would shift its anchor and speed across the thick void, leaving a trail of light and a year’s worth of wishes.

His breath hung above him, curling upwards like dragon’s breath, and he soon had to admit defeat and lower his gaze to concentrate on his deep steps through the crunch of the iced snow.

All around him was silence, and that did not unnerve Isaac – it soothed him. In silence there was no menace, no death. Only in silence did he know he and others were safe.

He reached the corner of the street he had known all his life, now blanketed with snow, causing it to look like another world; a cleaner, perhaps brighter one. As a young boy he had played on these streets with his friends whilst his father had worked in the shop, fixing clocks, locks, and anything that anyone else could not. He had taken pride in his ability to figure out the complex workings of a carriage clock, or perhaps a locked puzzle jewellery box. His face was always aglow in the evening, as he related how he had finally managed to compete his latest quest – a watch sent from England by a man who had been recommended his excellent services, or a carriage clock, with its tiny roundabout of little gold mice underneath, from a lady in Munich. Isaac had sat many a night, listening to his father’s tales of the mechanics of time, of locked treasure chests, making him feel as though he were on an adventure, not merely repairing the broken items of those around him.

He shook the memory from his mind as he crossed the street towards the shop that was now his. He looked left and right and stood for a moment, checking that the silence was still his friend. He brushed the snow from the keyhole, and as he did, his arm caught a veil of the icy powder on the door, uncovering the corner of the star, one he now wore too.

The click of the latch seemed too loud in the street, and Isaac hushed it as if it would obey, like a baby soothed by hearing its father’s voice.

Upon opening the door, a thud of snow fell from the low-hanging roof and Isaac felt his heart beat faster. He closed the door behind him slowly, carefully, seeing his tracks in the white being covered already.

He dared not switch on the light – a bare bulb that hung in the middle of the room – and instead lit a candle, its milky wax melted and bent to one side.

The shop had been closed now for almost a year; the dust long settled into thick grey grime that covered the glass display cases, obscuring the gold, bronze and silver watches and clocks that lived inside. A grandfather clock that stood in the corner dully ticked the seconds away, echoing in the stillness.

Isaac walked to his chair behind the counter, the floorboards creaking underneath his feet, and sat down, placing the candle on the worktop. He rubbed at his leg; the cold had made the stiffness from his childhood injury worse, and the muscles and tendons tensed beneath his skin with the same knot of fear Isaac felt in his heart.

He bent down and slowly got on all fours. With bent arthritic fingers he prised away a small floorboard, revealing the prize within – his grandfather’s pocket watch. He sat back on the chair and pressed the tiny clasp. With a quick snap, the plain gold cover opened and the watch face could be seen, the hand frozen in time at 3:20. Isaac tapped the glass, as he had done as a child, as if this tiny tap would make the hands start moving once more.

‘Silly,’ he said into the quiet. ‘Silly old man.’

He wanted to put the watch into his pocket and take it home, but he knew he could not. This was just a visit to an old friend, to a memory, to one part of his family that was still close by. Hannah, his wife, had died ten years before; before the world had gone mad, and before the rest of her family in Berlin had been rounded up and disappeared into the night.

Isaac knew now where they had gone, but then it was as though they’d simply disappeared. He was glad now that Hannah had died when she did.

He closed the watch and ran his hand over the smooth metal circle. He had wanted to engrave it one day, but he had never known what to draw or write on it. Now he laid it on the countertop, and found his tiny needles that pounded up and down to engrave. Slowly, methodically, he began to write his name – Isaac Schüller – and then, remember me, January 1945.

Once he had finished, he blew on the gold plating, the dust clearing to reveal his handiwork. He wiped it and then wrapped it in a cloth and placed it back into its hiding place, securing the wood with a gold-tipped nail.

He did not linger once his task was complete; he did not look at the treasures he was leaving behind, nor even glance at the photograph of Hannah that sat next to his ledgers bound in blue leather.

Isaac blew out the candle with one breath and opened the door slowly, checking the street for anything, anyone, before leaving.

He did not lock the door as he normally would have – what was the point? Instead, he placed his hands in his coat pockets and, bowing his head to the icy wind, he walked towards home, his left leg leaving a slightly larger print in the snow as it painfully tried to keep up with his right.

Isaac’s house was a small affair, nestled in the valley between rolling hills that sprouted springy green grass in the spring and summer, where bright red poppies, blue wheels of fluffy cornflower petals and tall daisies would bob and weave in the breeze. He stood and looked at those hills, his house a dark silhouette below, and hoped he would see another spring. Perhaps he would, he thought. This village was small, only a few hundred souls spaced between farmlands, and other than the local police insisting upon the Star of David stitched onto their clothing, and that any Jew give his business to the Reich, no one had come to take them away yet. Even his shop had been left untouched – the Reich clearly uninterested in the small treasures it held.

As he began to walk again, he felt a tickle on the back of his neck, just like when Hannah would quickly kiss him there when he was bent over a dim light, fixing and tinkering with the pieces of a watch.

He turned, almost expecting – stupidly – to see her there, her head wrapped in her cream woollen scarf, her lips bright red with cold. But he was alone.

‘Silly old man,’ he said aloud, then laughed. The cold and tiredness was tricking him, he decided. He was about to turn away when two yellow headlights appeared, and came barrelling over the potholes towards him.

Isaac dreamt he was a child again. Summer had woken the valley into a thick carpet of wildflowers and trees of all shades of green against the clear blue sky. He was lying on his back, feeling the tickle of blades of grass underneath him. Hannah was by his side and he reached out his hand to take hers. He could feel the warmth of her skin, smell the sweetness of her, but he daren’t look at her in case she went away.

He could hear the caw of crows and magpies in the trees as they screeched a warning to protect their young, whilst the chirp and chirrup of sparrows and blue tits interrupted them, allowing a mellower song to ring out.

‘You have to get up now,’ Hannah told him.

‘I don’t want to,’ he said.

‘Don’t be like that, Isaac. You can and you must.’

‘But where will you go?’ Isaac finally turned to look at her, and instead of seeing her face – her beloved face that was round like a child’s, with plump cheeks and a tiny snubbed nose, her almond-shaped eyes wide like a cat’s and sparkling with green and amber – the face he saw was that of a man, with a thick moustache and slanted grey eyes.

‘Wake up!’ the man shouted.

Suddenly, Isaac opened his eyes fully.

‘Where am I?’ he mumbled.

‘You’ve been leaning on me for hours. My arm has fallen asleep. I’d let you sleep longer, really I would, but I couldn’t move,’ the man said.

Isaac’s legs were asleep, his knees tucked under his chin, and trying to move them sent pins and needles shooting under the skin.

‘Stand for a minute, but not long as you’ll lose your spot,’ the grey-eyed man said.

Isaac stood unsteadily, leaning against the cattle cart’s wooden slats, and shook each foot. As he did, he looked around. The meek daylight that seeped through the slats illuminated little, but he could just make out people lying on the carriage floor, covered in coats and blankets, bags underneath their heads as pillows. They were packed tightly, like litters of kittens nestling into their mother to find warmth.

Isaac blew into his cupped hands. The air that filled the cart was freezing, and though it blew through the slats, it didn’t take away the musty smell of dried human sweat and dirt.

‘You got on late.’ The grey-eyed man stood up beside Isaac. ‘I’m Elijah. I’d shake your hand, but it doesn’t seem right.’

‘Isaac.’ He blew into his cupped hands once more.

‘Lucky, that’s what you are,’ Elijah said.

‘Lucky?’

‘Like I said, you’ve only been on here, what, a few hours? Me, it’s been days I think, but I was lucky too – some of these have been on here a week.’

Isaac looked around him. He caught the eye of a woman, her face gaunt and pale, her arms wrapped around two smaller sleeping figures, their eyelids fluttering in dreams. Isaac hoped they would stay asleep; he could not bear to see their eyes.

‘Although,’ Elijah continued, ‘they’re lucky too. Other carts, I saw people standing, no room to sit. Imagine, standing for a week?’

‘Where are we going?’ Isaac whispered, the warmth of his breath causing a puff of white smoke to hang in front of him.

‘Who knows? I started out near Cologne, but this lot, from what I can gather, are from Czechoslovakia, a few French too. Your head is bleeding, did you know?’

Isaac felt the back of his skull where a lump had grown, and a small cut had left dried blood down his neck. He drew his hand away and saw a smear of crimson.

‘It was bad when you got on – they threw you on and we all thought you were dead. Me, I was jealous of you. I thought to myself, I’d like to be like that now – you know, dead.’

Isaac’s hand shook a little and he flexed his fingers to alleviate the stiffness in his joints. ‘I can’t really remember what happened. There were headlights – I remember that. I was near home and then – nothing.’

‘Better that way,’ Elijah said, his body pressing into Isaac’s as the train rounded a bend, the click-clack of the wheels speeding up once more as it hit a straight. ‘I was awake the whole time. Marched to a school and told to bring a bag of belongings. They told us we were going to be repatriated somewhere else.’

‘We’re not…’ Isaac said.

‘No. We’re not. They think we are stupid, you know? They think we don’t know about the camps. I know where I’m going. Like I said before, I would rather have died than go through this.’

The train suddenly began to slow, the brakes lurching the cattle carts as steam billowed from underneath the chassis. Isaac held on to Elijah’s coat, and he did the same as around him the bundles of people began to sit up straighter, rubbing at tired, scared eyes.

Once the train had shuddered to a stop, people began to stand, clutching on to children, on to bags and empty hands that needed some comfort.

‘We’ve stopped,’ Isaac said stupidly.

A child pushed forward and pressed his face against the slatted door, trying to see through the thin gaps.

‘You see anything?’ a voice called from the back.

‘Think it’s a platform. I don’t know. There’s feet. I can see feet!’ the boy shouted back excitedly.

‘Bare feet?’ another child asked.

‘No. In black boots. They’re walking, I think.’

‘Come. Come, sit back down!’ the child’s mother admonished.

‘You have no belongings,’ Elijah said, looking at Isaac’s empty trembling hands.

Isaac looked at the others who clutched their small carpet bags and leather suitcases, then placed his hands in his coat pockets, finding them bare save for the cold iron key that opened his front door at home.

‘Don’t worry,’ Elijah said. ‘What does one bring on a trip like this, anyway? Books? Clothes? Food? I was given such a small amount of time to pack, I placed the most random things in my bag – a magazine, of all things, a magazine about woodwork! I doubt I’ve ever read it in my life, yet that’s what I grabbed – can you imagine that?’

Isaac felt comforted by the stream of chatter that came from Elijah. He could imagine nothing was really happening as long as Elijah continued to talk.

‘I thought of taking my sheet music, but then I thought to myself, I doubt I’ll get another piano where I’m going, so I left it. But now I’m thinking maybe I should have brought it – it was my mother’s, so maybe it would have been nice to have it now.’

Isaac thought of his own belongings; his green dressing gown that hung off the back of the rocking chair in his bedroom, the silver brush and comb set that had belonged to his wife, which still sat on the dresser along with small perfume bottles he would sometimes smell, just to get a scent of her once more.

He wondered who would take care of his home now – would someone live in it, side by side with his clothes and books?

Suddenly the carriage door began to slide open, and Isaac craned his neck to see what was outside.

One by one they were ushered out onto a stone and dirt track that sprouted weeds and grass in between cracks, as if life were still trying to show its face. Grey slush that had frozen overnight lay in mounds and the sky overhead matched it in colour, thick and heavy with the promise of new snow.

Within seconds the tracks were full of scores of people, with guards standing in front of them, pushing and shoving them into smaller groups, then dividing them by male and female.

‘Put your belongings over here!’ A man stood in front of Isaac, wearing a brown woollen coat, the Star of David stitched onto his breast and an armband on his left sleeve, his cheeks rosy from the cold. ‘You deaf? I said, put your belongings over here! Now! On the cart!’

Elijah stepped forward and placed his small tan suitcase onto the cart that was quickly becoming a heap of luggage.

‘Don’t worry, don’t worry,’ the man repeated. ‘You’ll get it back. You – I asked you to place your belongings on the cart.’ He turned once more to Isaac.

‘I have nothing,’ he simply said.

‘Nothing? A Jew with nothing?’ The man stared at the yellow star on Isaac’s coat.

Isaac held his hands open.

The man smirked at Isaac as if he had been waiting for someone just like him. He walked three or four steps towards a tall SS guard who stood aside, smoking a cigarette, his thick black coat wrapped around him, the lapels pulled up to keep his neck warm. He reminded Isaac of a crow.

The black crow listened as the man spoke to him, his moustache twitching, perhaps in a smile. He flicked his cigarette with expert fingers so that it flew into a pile of slushed snow. Isaac imagined that it extinguished with a hiss, like the candles he used at home.

The pair walked towards Isaac and he looked to Elijah, who was mumbling to another man about his magazine and whether he was indeed right to have brought it rather than the sheet music.

‘Name?’ The moustached man stood in front of Isaac, easily a head taller or more.

‘Isaac. Isaac Schüller.’

‘My Kapo here says you have no belongings?’

‘No.’

‘Not one thing?’

Isaac could feel sweat colleting under his armpits, even though his breath hung in the frigid air.

‘No. Not one thing.’

The moustache twitched again, then he turned to his Kapo and whispered in his ear, making him smile.

Suddenly, the butt of the Kapo’s baton was pounded into Isaac’s stomach. He hit the ground and curled himself up into a ball as the man struck him on the back, the kidneys.

‘Straighten out!’ the Kapo commanded. ‘Move your legs!’

Despite the pain, Isaac unfurled himself and lay flat on the ground, his breath quick and ragged.

The Kapo kneeled over him, his hands rummaging in the inside pockets of Isaac’s coat, his face set and disappointed at the lack of jewellery, watches or wallet. Then, he smiled. Slowly he drew out a leather pouch, just larger than an envelope. He held it up to the moustached man like a prized trophy.

‘Ah now, nothing you said,’ the moustached man said. ‘Stand up.’

Isaac placed the palm of his hand on the stony ground and heaved himself up, standing slightly doubled, wrapping his arms around his stomach where the brunt of the blow had hit him.

He looked left to see if Elijah was there, a face, someone who could help him, but he was lined up with thirty or so other men, their eyes facing towards a line of barracks and barbed wire that lay ahead.

Isaac looked back to the moustached man who was now unwrapping the leather pouch, revealing the tiny gold and silver instruments that lay within. He pulled out a miniature screwdriver, and held it close to look at the tiny engraving of Isaac’s name.

‘What are these?’ he asked.

‘They were my father’s,’ Isaac managed to gasp the words, his lungs feeling bruised. ‘They are mine now.’

‘Yours? And what do you do with them?’

‘I fix watches, clocks. Sometimes music boxes and jewellery puzzle boxes. Sometimes toys.’

‘Toys?’

‘Yes, children’s toys.’

‘Steam engines?’

Isaac nodded.

‘And clocks, you say? What about grandfather clocks – can you make them work if they are quiet?’

‘They take time, they are tricky, but yes, I can.’

The moustached man seemed interested and placed the tiny screwdriver back in its pouch. ‘What else?’

Isaac tried to think about all the things he had mended through the years. ‘Locks, sometimes, but not always… radios, but mostly watches and clocks.’

The moustached man lost interest and pocketed Isaac’s pouch of tools. ‘Get in line,’ he said, and nodded towards the shorter line of men that Elijah stood in, away from the others who were now marching towards the black gates and watchtowers of guards and guns.

‘Wait in that line until someone tells you to move.’ The Kapo pushed Isaac towards the men who stood shivering with cold, their hands in their pockets, their eyes focused on the camp ahead where smoke billowed out in thick blasts from the buildings within.

By the time the car crunched over the gravelled driveway, th. . .