Dachau Review

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 'I need to dry my eyes now after reading this book... a deeply profound book that was deeply moving... A very moving read and one I will not forget anytime soon.' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars 'Powerful... an epic, moving story based on a true account... 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 'An incredibly emotional, thought-provoking and heart-wrenching read... Schabowski did a superb job of making this the right amount of hopeful, sad and eye opening. Highly recommend!' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars 'An amazingly stunning book... a real tearful read... so vividly rendered... one story that I will never forget... took my breath away.' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars

“A rare moral thriller in the tradition of Fahrenheit 451,” this stunning work from the author of Ishmael is set in a white-washed alternate world where Nazis won the war (Village Voice) Daniel Quinn, well known for Ishmael—a life-changing book for readers the world over—once again turns the tables and creates an otherworld that is very like our own, yet fascinating beyond words. Imagine that Nazi Germany was the first to develop an atomic bomb and the Allies surrendered. America was never bombed, occupied, or even invaded, but was nonetheless forced to recognize Nazi world dominance. The Nazis continued to press their campaign to rid the planet of “mongrel races” until eventually the world—from Capetown to Tokyo—was populated by only white faces. Two thousand years in the future, people don’t remember, or much care, about this distant past. The reality is that to be human is to be Caucasian, and what came before was literally ancient history having nothing to do with those then living. Now imagine that reincarnation is real, that souls migrate over time from one living creature to another, and that a soul that once animated an American black woman living at the time of World War II now animates an Aryan in Quinn’s new world—and that due to a traumatic accident, memories of this earlier incarnation assert themselves. Compared by readers and critics alike to 1984 and Brave New World, After Dachau is a new dystopian classic with much to say about our own time, and the dynamics of human history.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Spring 1939. Taken prisoner by the Nazis, eighteen-year-old Ada is forced into a life of slavery and horror in Dachau concentration camp. Her skill as a seamstress is the only bargaining chip she has against the brutal SS guards. Back in London, she dreamed of being a world-renowned designer; now she must sew to save her life...but at what cost? For readers of THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ and THE LIBRARIAN OF AUSCHWITZ, this is a powerful and moving story of courage and resilience, betrayal and passion.

Dachau to the Dolomites is the dramatic but little-known story of a group of prominent Nazi SS hostages transported from various concentration camps to a remote Alpine valley in the final days of the Third Reich. Five Irishmen were among the 160 prisoners whom Himmler and other SS leaders attempted to use as barter to save the regime or, as a final resort, themselves. As well as eminent international statesmen, aristocrats and clergy, the group contained opposition German generals and civilian relatives of those who had plotted against Hitler, including the family of Claus von Stauffenberg, who placed the bomb in Hitler's Wolf's Lair. Among the hostages were a number of British officers, survivors of the famous 'Great Escape', and also Colonel John McGrath from Roscommon, a World War I veteran who had left his job as manager of Dublin's Theatre Royal to rejoin the British Army in 1939. They had been held with Russian, Italian and Polish special prisoners as 'Nacht und Nebel' - Night and Fog - prisoners, whose existence was a state secret. They lived in constant danger of execution, a fate some did not escape, including Stalin's son, who died following a fracas with Irish prisoners. It is an astonishing and epic tale encompassing heroic endurance, escape, betrayal, tragedy and love.

The untold story of the bloodiest and most dramatic march to victory of the Second World War—now a Netflix original series starring Jose Miguel Vasquez, Bryan Hibbard, and Bradley James “Exceptional . . . worthy addition to vibrant classics of small-unit history like Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers.”—Wall Street Journal Written with Alex Kershaw's trademark narrative drive and vivid immediacy, The Liberator traces the remarkable battlefield journey of maverick U.S. Army officer Felix Sparks through the Allied liberation of Europe—from the first landing in Italy to the final death throes of the Third Reich. Over five hundred bloody days, Sparks and his infantry unit battled from the beaches of Sicily through the mountains of Italy and France, ultimately enduring bitter and desperate winter combat against the die-hard SS on the Fatherland's borders. Having miraculously survived the long, bloody march across Europe, Sparks was selected to lead a final charge to Bavaria, where he and his men experienced some of the most intense street fighting suffered by Americans in World War II. And when he finally arrived at the gates of Dachau, Sparks confronted scenes that robbed the mind of reason—and put his humanity to the ultimate test.

In 1940, 28-year-old Jack Elworthy left to fight in Europe. He would return seven years later, changed forever. Like many soldiers, Jack had experienced the best and worst of human nature - from kindness and bravery of Crete civilians to the unimaginable horrors of Dachau. He escaped from Greece as the Nazis rolled in, fought and was captured in Crete, and endured four years in Germany's notorious POW camp Stalag VIIIB. Freed by American forces in 1945, he talked his way into the US Army's Thunderbird Division, which then made its way to Munich, and ultimately the liberation of Dachau. After seeing the concentration camp, he wrote of his 'disbelief that there existed a kind of people who could gas rooms full of naked people and shoot rows of kneeling men, women and children, day after day'. Jack's war was not over. Back in Britain awaiting repatriation, he devised a plan to return to devastated Europe - and succeeded, to the disbelief of MI5, who would later strong-arm him into revealing how he'd done it.

Marcus Smith was the sole medical officer attached to a small displaced person (DP) team that was sent to the Dachau concentration camp the day after it was liberated by Allied troops and several days before the shocking conditions of the camp were publicized throughout the world. Several years after his experience at Dachau, believing that we must never forget what happened, Smith unearthed his notes and the daily letters he wrote to his wife and used them as source materials for Dachau: The Harrowing of Hell. From the perspective of a young physician, Smith describes his experiences, shedding light on the immense difficulties and complexities of the large-scale tasks the small DP team completed, against great odds, to combat epidemic diseases and starvation and repatriate the former prisoners. Smith also describes some of the people the team tried to help—men, women, and children from all walks of life, of many nationalities and religions. Smith tells his moving story objectively, with simplicity and grace. While this book is the story of man's inhumanity to man, it is more than an account of Nazi persecution. It is about how Smith, whose previous experience had not prepared him for the immense horror of what he encountered at Dachau, quickly became a public health expert; how a small team improvised relief and combated a typhus epidemic; and how the soldiers of different countries had to get along with each other while dealing with the prejudices of some of the displaced people they were trying to help. Dachau contains six drawings by noted European artist Zoran Music, who was arrested by the Gestapo in Venice in 1944 and incarcerated at Dachau. The drawings were given to Smith when he left Dachau.