DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
By all accounts Harry Lenga had a pretty rough childhood, and his father didn’t make it any easier.
If we zoom in on Harry’s father as a character in the story, how should he be judged by the reader?
Did the events and circumstances of his childhood help or hinder his ability to survive the war and rebuild his life from scratch afterwards? How and why?
Are there any stories from Harry’s childhood that parallel his survival stories during the war?
In Warsaw before the war, how can we compare and contrast Harry’s relationships with his employers vs. his father?
The scene of the Lenga brothers leaving their family home in Kozhnitz the night before the Germans liquidated the ghetto was the most heart-wrenching story for me to write.
Consider the role of the Polish police captain who showed himself to be a true friend and clearly saved their lives. Contrast this with his larger role in implementing the “final solution” with regard to the rest of the Jews of the town.
Aside from the obvious practical importance of the watchmaking tools and parts that the Lenga brothers received from their father in that scene, consider the symbolic importance of these tools as implements of spiritual resistance.
What is spiritual resistance as opposed to militant physical resistance and what is the value of it?
Consider how watchmaking changed the status of the Lenga brothers in the camps at Wolanow, Starachowice, Auschwitz and Melk.
How was this status achieved and maintained?
Did this status put them in morally compromising situations?
How did they respond to these situations?
Harry had a remarkable ability to find a spark of humanity in otherwise evil people and somehow build an ongoing relationship with them.
What personal qualities enabled him to do this?
Consider these relationships from the perspective of Corbinus and Bartman in Wolanow and the French prisoner who controlled work assignments in Auschwitz.
Were they getting something out of this relationship with Harry beyond the simple economic value of watch repair or a watch?
The scene in the Wolanow Slave Labor Camp where Harry approaches Corbinus to fix a watch for the first time is a pivotal event in the book.
Compare this to the scene just after liberation where Harry approaches a U.S. Army soldier who is guarding the gate of the Ebensee camp and offers to fix his watch.
