April 30, 2012
The Watchmaker’s Daughter, a memoir, is the definitive, inspiring view of the author’s binocular life as the American child of Orthodox, Yiddish-speaking concentration camp survivors. In it, she is adult and child, daughter and mother – but always the inspired interpreter of her special historical legacy. Sonia Taitz is born into a world in which the Holocaust is discussed constantly by her parents. She soon learns that she is named after no less than three dead relatives, her paternal grandmother (Sonia Taitz) and her mother’s two younger brothers, from which her middle name, Judith, is derived. She also learns that her father was a hero at Dachau, saving the lives of other prisoners as the camp watchmaker. This legacy, combined with her passion and intelligence, leads the author to forge an adventurous life in which she seeks to heal both her parents and herself through travel, worldly achievement, and a daring love affair.