The Watchmaker's Daughter - Before and During Reading

For lots of reasons, this is the type of book that I need to dissect before, during and after reading. And then I'll need to readdress the whole thing after Books & Beer Club discusses the book at our next meeting. Therefore, I'm breaking this up into 4 parts in 3 different posts.Way Before, As I'm Reading, My Review, and After the Meeting.

I don't remember who came up with the suggestion to read this book, The Watchmaker's Daughter by Sonia Taitz. June is apparently the month we're reading non-fiction and somsone had heard that this was an excellent memoir. I was confused for a minute. Isn't Corrie Ten Boom, the righteous gentile who saved many Jews during the Holocaust, the "watchmaker's daughter"? How can someone else write her memoir? Not to mention she had written her own memoir. I was confused. But since I thought that was a wonderful story, I was game to read another version of it.

Once I found the description of the book online, I realized that it had nothing to do with Corrie Ten Boom. It was truly a daughter of a totally different watchmaker. Okay...

I downloaded and started reading the e-book the other night. It's the memoir of a woman, Sonia Taitz, not much older than I am, child of Holocaust survivors, born in the United States. In fact, born in New York City. My former husband was also a child of Holocaust survivors, born in New York City, probably only a year before the author. I wondered how similar her story would be to his.

Sonia's father's father died when he was a young boy. He had no money to go to school so he apprenticed with a watchmaker. Soon enough, he was a master watchmaker and an expert at repairing timepieces. That's what saved him when the Nazis came. Germans are famous for being on time and keeping to time schedules. The war didn't alter that. They valued their timepieces and only a master watchmaker could keep the clocks and watches running properly. Sonia's father became the watchmaker at Dachau. He had value.

Sonia's mother had been raised by wealthy parents and was destined to be a concert pianist. Then the Nazis came to town. The mother's father and two brothers were murdered. Sonia stuck to her mother and miraculously, the two of them survived.

Sonia's parents met at a dance in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany where they both ended up after the end of the war.

I feel very connected to the book. While I wasn't raised with the Holocaust being an everyday topic of conversation, it did become a major part of the dialogue of my first marriage. I was always told that I didn't understand suffering or loss. And I'm sure I didn't. Relatively speaking. Who can imagine the magnitude of the suffering of someone who lived through the Holocaust? But just as my ex-husband embodied the loss and suffering of his parents, I somehow did too, without ever meeting his parents. It was an important part of my life with him. Shortly after the divorce, will researching the psyche of children of Holocaust survivors, I determined that my first husband took on the traits of being a survivor. As I read about Sonia's parents, I'm reminded of habit and beliefs of my former husband.

Having said that, so far what I've read about Sonia's story, her early life was very similar to mine... just with the undercurrent - no, too mild a word - horrific burden of the Holocaust there all the time.

Sonia's parents were immigrants who spoke with a thick Eastern European accent, who had experienced horrific losses on their road to becoming Sonia's parents. Everything they did was for the betterment of their family. Sonia and her brother were their everything.

My parents were American. My mother's parents were even born in the US. Both my parents were college-educated and New York was their home. Not that they didn't do everything they could for the betterment of our family. They did. But my brother and I did not have to constantly feel the weight of all that.

As I'm reading, I am able to make so many text-to-self connections. I fully understand the Jewish references and can relate to so many of them. I was not brought up in an observant household but had many friends that were. The stories about Washington Heights and Riverdale and the neighborhoods fits in with my early view of the world. I can't help but wonder what the other women in my book club will think about or wonder about or make sense of what they are reading in the book. I feel like I'm reading about "home" and "friends" and shared experiences. What must they think?

My current husband is an immigrant, the son of immigrants. Would Sonia's story resonate more strongly with him than with my American-born book club friends? I wonder.

I joined Books and Beer Club in order to discuss Uncle Tom's Cabin, which I'd read several years earlier but never had anyone to discuss it with. I felt that the discussion we had about that book was way different than a discussion I might have had with a northern book club. Likewise, I'm sure the conversations around The Watchmaker's Daughter will be quite different with this book club than it would be with a New York City book club or a Jewish book club. But how different?

I also fear that this book won't seem relevant to the other members of the club.

I'm about two-thirds of the way thru the book. Sonia is a young adult, finally rebelling against her parents. I'm relating to her less - and liking her less. Did being able to relate to her as a girl make me like her more? And if that's the case, will the other members of the book club like her as well?

I'm reading the book weeks before the book club so (for the first time in ages), I'm taking copious notes of things that I think I want to share with the book club. Will they be interested in what I feel compelled to share? Only time will tell.

Stay tuned for my next two posts about The Watchmaker's Daughter.