The Watchmaker of Dachau: An absolutely heartbreaking World War 2 historical novel

by Carly Schabowski

  That evening Isaac returned to the camp, somewhat satisfied with his work for the day. The watch was coming together nicely, especially the strap, which he was joining together with gemstones and gold links so that whichever way the wrist moved, it would catch the light.

  He sat with Elijah in the bunkhouse, where tired yet eager faces awaited their evening meal. Tonight, it was soup again. Watery with vegetables that tasted rotten – one ladle each into a tin bowl, one lump of bread to be halved and kept for breakfast the following day, and a weak cup of coffee or a cup of water.

  ‘I cannot bear it.’ Elijah was crying over his soup. ‘I cannot bear even eating it.’

  ‘You’re sick?’ Isaac asked.

  Elijah shook his head. ‘I want to eat it, but then as soon as I do, it is gone, and I am hungry, and I cannot bear it being gone.’

  Isaac looked at his own bowl. He had eaten some bread that day, brought to him by Greta, who looked as thin and gaunt as he did now, her chest rattling with her cough.

  ‘Eat yours, then you will eat mine,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Really?’ Elijah wiped his face with his sleeve. ‘You really mean it?’

  ‘I do. Now eat.’

  Isaac watched his friend gulp the first bowl of soup down, then, taking Isaac’s, he ate slower, as if he were at home eating dinner with a family, his spoon politely dipped in and out of the liquid.

  ‘Where’s Jan?’ Isaac asked, looking around and not seeing his stern face.

  ‘He was taken from work this afternoon – he had to do a job or something,’ Elijah said between sips. ‘But he didn’t come back.’

  Isaac’s mouth was suddenly dry. ‘Were others taken with him?’

  Elijah nodded. ‘A few. They said they had a special job for them.’

  Jan’s bunk was still empty over an hour after dinner. Isaac looked around as if he would find him on another, as if Jan were playing a game with him.

  ‘He’s gone,’ he said quietly.

  Elijah, too tired to respond, climbed into his bed and fell asleep within seconds. Isaac did not know what to do. He asked the others if they had seen Jan, seen where he had gone, but all of them were unconcerned with his questions. Instead, they had heard a rumour – someone had overheard the guards talking about the Americans, how they were close, how bombs were falling all over Germany and they would soon be set free.

  Despite the fear he had in his belly, Isaac was drawn to listen to them as they eagerly discussed their freedom.

  ‘It’s true, it has to be. You know that guard, the one with the scar over his eyebrow?’ someone said.

  ‘I know him,’ someone chimed in. ‘He’s the angel of death. He likes to take prisoners and torture them. Trust me, I know.’ He raised his jacket to show his bare skin where thick, puckered scars stared angrily at them.

  ‘Anyway, he stank of alcohol, I could smell it. He was swaying and his eyes were glassy, and he didn’t even notice me when I walked past. He was talking to another guard – the young one with blond hair – he was saying how it was time, that it was going to happen soon and what would become of them? Other camps have been liberated. It is going to happen – I swear to you it is!’

  ‘If they don’t kill us first,’ a voice from the back said, silencing them all. It was Jan.

  Slowly, Jan appeared, like a ghost with sockets that were black where his eyes should be, his face paler than freshly fallen snow.

  ‘They can’t burn the bodies quickly enough. The trains we came in on, they’re full,’ Jan said.

  ‘Full with what?’ someone asked.

  ‘Bodies. The boxcars are full. We moved some today. All day. Carting them there. There’s no food left either. No food.’

  Jan came closer, sweat on his brow, and Isaac sat him down and rubbed his back as though he was a child.

  ‘They said there was little time. The Americans are coming. But I don’t know if we will meet them alive.’

  The men were silent, all of them looking at their hands which were not much more than bone. ‘What else did they say?’ someone whispered. ‘Maybe we can escape?’

  Jan shook his head. ‘We could try. But how far could we get like this? We are almost dead. We may as well let them end it for us.’ Jan stood and allowed Isaac to lead him to his bed. He lay down, staring at Isaac’s bunk above him.

  ‘I have to do it again tomorrow. There’s so many of them, Isaac. So many. All one on top of the other so you cannot tell which part belongs to whom. A tangled mess of bodies, Isaac.’

  Isaac sat on the edge of Jan’s bunk. Words failed him. There was nothing to say, nothing to take that memory away.

  So he sat until Jan fell asleep, then he sat and waited until morning, his mind tumbling over his own memories – of his son, of Hannah – and then the imagining of future memories that he hoped one day to make, if he could survive just a little longer.

  Over the next few weeks, more died. From hunger, from torture, from gunshots when they tried to escape. Bodies were piled high in the camp grounds, the buzz of flies a constant hum over them. They were not asked to move them; they were not told anything. It was as though it had always been this way and they had to accept it.

  Isaac had not returned to the house – no guard had come to collect him, and no word had come to him that he should have a different role. Instead, work details ceased and they were left to roam the camp, day in and day out, waiting for something to happen, whilst food was thrown at them from carts. If you were lucky and caught something, then you ate; if you did not, then you would starve.

  The guards roamed too. Like a pack of hungry lost wolves. Their fingers were trigger happy, their arms filled with random strength to beat anyone who took their fancy.

  Isaac stayed in the bunkhouse as much as possible. He spoke to Elijah, to Jan. They made up games to keep their minds active, and counted the time and days as they slowly crept by. He thought often of Anna and wondered if she was at the house or whether she too had been confined to the camp. When there was no game to play, no stories to tell, Isaac lay on his bunk and daydreamed of a life outside the camp. In his daydream he was a little younger, and Anna was by his side, and by his other, a small boy – an age similar to Friedrich – who wanted to mend watches, who wanted to run and play with kites when the wind whipped up.

  Then he would shake the silliness from his mind, settling on real memories of his life before – of the person he used to be, of the days spent with his son in his arms, and when he was well enough, their short walks in the meadows, teaching him how to talk, the names of the trees and the birds.

  If Isaac was honest with himself, he had always known his son was not for this world. He was fragile from birth, with weak spindly limbs and a cry that was so feeble, it sounded like a newborn kitten.

  But his son had been full of life – full of questions, his eyes roaming over everything, wanting to know more, see more. When he had met Friedrich and the boy had asked questions, his keenness to have someone to talk to, his desire to know what else was happening in the world, had reminded Isaac of his son. And with that, a part of him, the part of loving someone, caring for someone, which he had shut down after both his son and Hannah had died, woke up.

  Although the memory of the shed, of the watches, of the Bechers, was becoming ever more distant with each day that passed, he still thought of Friedrich. He worried for him, and wished he could talk to him and tell him that everything would be all right.

  One afternoon, Isaac sat on a patch of grass, watching the trees rustle in the wind just beyond the fences of the camp. They were so near, so near and yet so far from him. He coughed, feeling it swell in his chest, his ribs hurting with each movement. It was getting worse.

  ‘Schüller?’ A guard stood before him. ‘I need you to come with me.’

  Isaac stood, then had to wait a moment for blood to find its way around his body, air into his lungs. He shuffled after the guard who walked him to the Bechers’ home, his gun trained on Isaac’s back as if
he could run away at any moment.

  On the driveway were two cars, one a black town car, the other an older model that was a deep burgundy.

  ‘Ah, Isaac.’ Becher walked towards him and dismissed the guard with a flick of his wrist. ‘I am sorry I have not needed you for a while, but I need you now. You once told me you could fix anything, is that not so?’

  ‘I did, I think I did.’

  ‘Good, well, here are two cars. I bought them myself, and I need them to work perfectly. They are not new, from a friend. And I need you to look at the engines, check everything, make sure that they can go for miles and miles without anything happening to them.’

  Isaac looked at the cars and then at Becher, whose smile was set firmly in place, the top button of his shirt undone, the tie askew.

  ‘So you’ll do it then?’ Becher slapped him on the back, which made Isaac start a coughing fit.

  Becher took a step away from him, lit a cigarette and blew the smoke directly in Isaac’s face. ‘You won’t let me down, will you? The mechanic I had, well, he isn’t here anymore, and I need this to stay between us, you understand? The other guards would be jealous if they knew I had bought cars – they’d wonder why they weren’t getting paid more!’ Becher forced a laugh.

  Isaac recovered himself, wiping away the tears that had filled his eyes as he coughed. ‘I’m not a mechanic,’ he said simply.

  ‘But you can fix things.’ Becher took a step towards him, pointing at him with his cigarette. ‘You said you could fix things.’

  Isaac nodded. ‘But I’ve rarely fixed cars.’

  ‘Rarely? So you have done it before?’

  Isaac remembered a tractor he had fixed, and he’d helped a neighbour with his car when the fuel pipe had been clogged. ‘Only a couple.’

  ‘Well, that’ll have to do then. Like I said, take a look. Tell me what you need. Take the pieces back to the shed, clean them, fix them.’ Becher waved his hand in the air. ‘Do whatever you need to do with them. Just make sure I can trust them, is that clear?’

  Isaac nodded and Becher grinned at him. ‘I knew I could rely on you. Now, here, I’ll open the bonnets for you. Take a look and then get to work – quickly, now, as quickly as you can.’

  Becher switched on the engines and Isaac watched as they sprang to life. The black car seemed to clink and clang every thirty seconds, as if something were knocking against it. He counted and waited for each clang – yes, thirty seconds.

  The burgundy car ran quieter, yet there was a churning noise, as if something were rubbing against another part.

  Becher turned off the engines. ‘So?’

  ‘I need to look at them for a while.’

  ‘Yes. I’ll leave you to it,’ Becher said, but did not move. Isaac saw that Becher’s eyes could not stay still; they roamed the fence, the gate, then settled back on the cars once more. ‘Yes. I’ll leave you to it,’ Becher repeated, then walked back to the house.

  Isaac spent a few hours looking at the engines, trying to understand how they worked. His mind was tired, clouded with hunger, and it took him longer than normal to see the basic workings. What was he supposed to do? Clear the carburettor? Clear the fuel pipes, check the oil? That was all he could see to do. He wiped his oil-smeared hands on his coat, then made his way towards the shed. He needed to think.

  ‘Where are you going? What do you need?’ Becher was bounding towards him.

  ‘I need to think about the engines,’ Isaac told him calmly. ‘Like I did with the grandfather clock. I need to think.’

  ‘Yes! Quite right. I will bring you some paper and a pencil like before, and you can do your diagrams and work it all out, yes?’

  Before Isaac could answer, Becher was gone, then returned a minute later, the paper in his hands. ‘Remember, you come to me, only to me, and tell me what you need, all right?’

  Isaac nodded, took the paper and pencil, and headed towards the shed he’d not seen in weeks.

  He was in the shed barely a moment before Anna burst in and took him in an embrace.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ she said, her bottom lip trembling.

  ‘I’m still here.’ Isaac began to cough again, and Anna helped him to sit.

  ‘Wait here, I’ll be back.’ Anna ran from the shed, leaving Isaac to find his breath.

  ‘Here.’ Anna was back, the hot mug of coffee in one hand, a lump of bread and cheese in the other. ‘Take it, eat, drink. You look so weak.’

  Isaac ate without tasting the bread and then sat sipping at the coffee, allowing himself to savour it.

  ‘You’re sick,’ Anna said, a crease in her brow.

  ‘And you look even thinner,’ Isaac remarked.

  Anna nodded. ‘Things are changing though; the Americans are coming,’ she said excitedly. Although dark circles were beneath Anna’s eyes, she was brighter than before, as if the thought of the Americans was bringing her hope.

  Isaac wanted to tell her that they would be lucky to see them, that maybe by the time they arrived they would all be dead from hunger, but he could not take that hope from her. ‘They are,’ he said simply.

  ‘Just think, Isaac, that soon we will be out of this place! We can find our family; we can go wherever we want to go.’

  ‘And where will you go, Anna?’

  ‘Away from Germany. Maybe America. I’d take my friend Nina, and her brother and anyone else I can find. We can live in the sun, near a coast, and everything will be bright and colourful.’

  Anna’s dream lifted a weight from him, and he allowed himself a moment to imagine her laughing, wearing a bright red dress, her cheeks plump and belly full.

  ‘I have to get back.’ Anna looked at the house. ‘Frau Becher is hysterical at the moment, demanding things every minute of the day and then screaming at everyone. I’ll come back later?’

  Isaac nodded and let her leave. He looked at the blank pages in front of him and realised they were not the papers he wanted to see.

  It took him over five minutes to get down on all fours and find the bundle of J. A. L.’s musings. He had to sit and catch his breath before he started to read, and as soon as he’d finished the first page, he wished he had never started.

  Chapter 20

  J. A. L.

  August 1944

  Things have changed yet again. It is strange to think that things do change here – it surprised even me, whose days are spent working and nights sleeping.

  I was asked yesterday to help at the morgue. This was unusual, and I felt a shiver of fear as soon as my number was called for the work detail. I wanted to tell the guard that this was not where I was supposed to be, that I was meant to be in Herr Becher’s garden, pruning, mowing their lawn.

  I and two others were led to the rear of the morgue, where on the grass lay the naked body of a teenaged boy who was over six feet tall, and another smaller boy, perhaps only three feet.

  ‘Freaks,’ the guard said, and kicked the foot of the taller boy. ‘You know, they are both fifteen – can you imagine, a fifteen-year-old who keeps growing to the sky, and then a boy the same age shunted towards the ground?’

  The guard lit a cigarette and blew a plume of smoke so that for a second the bodies were in a haze, almost as if it were all a dream, or a nightmare.

  ‘See those barrels over there?’ The guard pointed to two large vats with steam pouring out of them. ‘Put them in there, then sit and wait until all the flesh is off them. Then bring them out and lay them on the ground. Keep the water boiling – stoke the coals underneath, don’t let them go out. You’ve no idea how long it took me this morning to get them going.’

  I felt vomit rise in my throat, the coffee and bread from the morning stuck there as I tried to swallow it down.

  One of the others did vomit, covering his shoes. The guard spat on the floor in distaste.

  ‘They’re coming to collect the skeletons tomorrow, so we need it done today.’

  ‘Where are they going?’ I asked, surprising myself and waiting fo
r the inevitable blow that was to come from either his fist or baton.

  The guard seemed happy to talk though, his eyes excited. ‘The Führer’s museum, of course! He will have skeletons of all the strange shapes you Jews grow into. Can you imagine it? A whole museum showing the truth! It will be a sight to see when it is finished.’

  With that, the guard dropped the rest of his cigarette on the ground, his black boot scuffing it until it died.

  ‘I’ll be over there,’ he indicated a watchtower, ‘and if I’m not, someone else will be.’

  We nodded at him – we knew. There was always someone watching, always someone with a gun in their hands, desperate to pull the trigger for any reason.

  ‘Is he serious?’ the man who didn’t vomit asked me.

  ‘I don’t see how this can be a joke,’ I said. My eye caught the naked bodies of the boys once more, flies already buzzing around the taut skin across their ribs, their pubic bones jutting out.

  ‘I can’t,’ the vomiting man said.

  ‘We’ve no choice,’ I replied.

  Between the three of us, we picked up the tall boy and carried his body towards the hot water. We laid him there and did the same with his smaller friend, who weighed so little, I think I could have carried him in my arms alone.

  ‘We should give them names,’ I said.

  ‘That’s disgusting. What on earth are you saying that for?’ the vomiting man said.

  ‘They deserve a name before we do this. They deserve to be thought of as people.’

  ‘Fine,’ the non-vomiting man said. ‘The tall one, he can have my name, Alexander.’

  ‘And he, the small one, he can have mine,’ the vomiting man said, ‘Jeremiah.’

  I nodded and said a small prayer for them both. Then together we placed each one in the vats of boiling water.

  ‘They’re not going in all the way,’ Alexander said. I looked and saw his dead counterpart’s head bobbing on top of the water.