Isäni sodan salaisuudet

by Ariana Neumann

Tositarina miehestä, joka selvisi holokaustista ja salasi tyttäreltään kaiken. Ylistetty kirja on koukuttava salapoliisikertomus ja ajatuksia herättävä tositarina meitä kaikkia yhdistävistä ihmisyyden siteistä.
”Neumannin paljastama tositarina on kuin romaani täynnä jännittäviä juonenkäänteitä, uhkarohkeita rakkauden tekoja ja odottamattomia keveyden hetkiä synkkyyden keskellä.” -The New York Times

Ariana Neumann haaveili lapsena salapoliisin työstä. Eräänä päivänä hän teki shokeeraavan löydön perheen dokumenttien seasta – hänen isänsä ei ollut se, kuka hän vaikutti olevan. Kun Arianan isä kuoli vuonna 2001, hän oli jättänyt jälkeensä ratkaisevan johtolangan: laatikollisen sota-aikaisia papereita. Ne avasivat oven isän menneisyyteen ja suvun salaisuuksiin.

Alkoi vuosikymmeniä kestänyt salapoliisityö, jonka aikana Arianalle paljastui hänen sukunsa juutalaistausta Euroopassa. Pikkuhiljaa Arianalle selvisi koko ihmeellinen totuus hänen suvustaan ja isän sodan aikaisesta pakomatkasta natsien hallitsemasta Prahasta ainoaan mahdolliseen turvapaikkaan – Berliiniin.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, History, Holocaust, Biography, World War II, Biography Memoir

322 pages, Hardcover

First published February 4, 2020

About the author

Ariana was born in Caracas, Venezuela. She has been researching her family history, tracing people, uncovering untold stories and solving the mysteries of her father's past for over a decade.

Her memoir When Time Stopped (Scribner, February 2020; Argo CZ, May 2020; Les Escales FR 2021; Nagrela ES, 2021,Politiken DK 2021, Shanghai Nanquan Cultural Diffusion Co CN, 2023, Into Kustannus FI, 2023; 20/20 PR, 2022) tells her journey of discovery about her father’s unlikely survival after hiding in plain sight in Berlin during WWII and gives glimpses of the lives, hopes and loves of a family lost in the Holocaust.

When Time Stopped has been reviewed in the New York Times, Financial Times, The Guardian, TLS, The Spectator, Daily Mail, The Oldie, JC, Times of Israel, The Sydney Morning Herald. It was an instant New York Times Bestseller, and a Financial Times and Daily Mail “Book of the Week”. It was also chosen as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Pick and a Bookpage Readers Choice Best books of 2020. It's been recommended by Newsweek, Vogue, Hey Alma, Buzzfeed, The Sydney Morning Herald, Goodreads, Independent booksellers of America (Indie Next List for February 2020). When Time Stopped won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, The Jewish Book Award for Best Memoir and was shortlisted for the Wingate Prize.

Ariana studied History and French Literature at Tufts University and received an MA from New York University in Spanish and Latin American Literature. She also has a degree from University of London in Psychology of Religion.
She worked briefly in publishing and newspapers before taking time to raise her children.

She now lives in London, UK, with her family and three dogs. She is passionate about them all, as well as about books and chocolate. She loves walking, sappy French and Latin ballads, theatre and sunshine.
If you are investigating your roots or thinking about researching your family history and want some tips do get in touch!

Reviews

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Today, January 27th is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the day 75 years ago when Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated. I say this every time I read a book on the Holocaust - it is imperative that we think about and remember those who perished at the hands of such absolutely evil people and also remember those who survived, but not only today. Their stories are of the utmost importance and we have to keep listening to and reading them and hearing them because we can’t let this happen again. There are so few survivors left, so others will have to carry the torch to tell and tell, again and again.

Ariana Neumann writes so eloquently of her father’s past, a hidden past too painful for him to relive, to talk about, but eventually revealed. She writes of her family, many of whom perished at the hands of the Nazis and of those who survived. She reminisces about how as a little girl growing up in Venezuela, she finds a photograph of her father in a box, an identity card with his picture and a stamp of Hitler. While this was the beginning of her awareness that her father had kept his past from her, it wasn’t until many years later when at his death, he leaves her a box of of letters and photos, that she realized that there was so much more to know . There was everything to know about her father and his family who suffered at the hand of the Nazis in their homeland in Czechoslovakia before he came to Venezuela. It was several years later that she was able to bring herself to have the letters translated and years before she could bring herself to read them the memoir he had begun writing . She generously shares them with us.

She begins her journey to that past, reaching out to cousins and family friends, piecing together what they knew, tracing the lives of her grandparents in Terezin (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There...), piecing together her father’s story. Neumann travels to the places where her father did, looking for remnants of her grandparents lives, for the man who helped save her father. It’s gut wrenching as all Holocaust stories are, but it’s filled with love for her father, filled with the love within the family she never knew. In her heartfelt dedication, Ariana Neumann says “This book is dedicated to the memory of those who could not tell their stories. “ We must keep reading the stories that others tell of them. This is one of those books.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Scribner through NetGalley and Edelweiss.

[Beata · Rating 3 out of 5]

The search to discover the past that was never fully mentioned makes this memoir an interesting read. I guess this was the first time I had read about the Jews in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and I admit there were some issues which I found rather surprising when compared with the plight of the Jews in occupied Poland. This was not my first read on the Holocaust, however, it was not that shocking or compelling in comparison with other books.
Ms Neumann's love for her father and family is obvious and she is happy and lucky to have found descendants after years of thorough search. Her perseverance to find out what her family went through is admirable.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adriana Neumann has written the amazing history of her father Hans Neumann and what his family endured during WWll.
Ariana grew up in Venezuela daughter of Hans, a wealthy industrialist, and didn’t even know about her fathers history.
When her father died, she was left a box with all sorts of documents and a picture I.D. of her father, that had a little picture of Hitler on it below his.
From here, she did all the investigating to find out her fathers history.. unbelievable!!
Hans and his family were Jews living in Czechoslovakia, they had their own paint company, a country home, were doing well until the Nazi’s took over.
This is so different from other stories as we see the lengths the people had to go through to keep out of sight of the Nazi’s .. what a story!

Thank you to my Goodreads friend Tammy for bringing this book to my attention!


Thank you to Scribner through Netgalley for this ARC

Here is a little video by Ariana
https://youtu.be/IKdmasdnpvE

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

“This book is dedicated to the memory of those who could not tell their stories”

THANK YOU, *TAMMY*.... for making sure I didn’t miss this book!

Adriana Neumann grew up in Venezuela.
This book is a tribute to her father, Hans Neumann.
Part literary family memoir... part mystery detective tale....
....a search for answers and the truth: a daughters profound love for her father!!!

What Hans experienced during the war was horrendous and monstrous.
He could never speak about it.
It was only after Hans died, that he left a box of letters diary entries, photos and beautiful memorabilia, (photos of an old watch gave me chills... along with other wonderful photos), for Adriana....
which sent Adriana on a worldwide search to uncover her father’s story...spanning nearly ninety years.

Hans was a brilliant man - highly respected in his community. He built an industrial empire in Venezuela.
He had a passion for art.
Hans compulsively collected watches, books, clocks, medieval objects, paintings, and sculptures....and had an obsession with timekeeping and punctuality.
He owned 297 pocket watches.
I found Hans to be a fascinating man - handsome -loyal to his family - driven - smart as a whip-
And this was even ‘before’ we learn about his ( wonderful) daughter, Ariana, who uncovers the family secrets from the past.

In Hans later years before his death, he suffered a massive stroke, which left him wheelchair bound. It was really inspiring to learn how he kept active. His physical limitations didn’t stop him
from his exercise regime. He was up early swimming laps aided with a float, and traipsed up and down the corridor with a walking frame three times a day.

HANS LIVED FULLY - after the war up to the day he died
but he didn’t burden his family one iota about the horrors he endured during the Holocaust.

After suffering a series of more strokes that left his legs paralyzed completely...he eventually succumbed to his death.
Ariana’s father was cremated September 11, 2001.
Shortly after Hans died, Ariana gave birth to her first child. A boy.
She and her husband were living in London at the time of her father’s death.

Adriana shared about her childhood- growing up in Caracas, Venezuela in the 1970’s, and 80’s.
Her neighborhood in Venezuela sounded like an oasis with a wonderful garden that had dozens of different palms, mangos, guava, acacia, and eucalyptus trees...
and bushes covered with orchards.
Adriana said;
“The country that I grew up in was filled with promise. There were serious problems— social disparity, corruption, and poverty— but there was also a sense that such issues were being addressed. Social and educational programs were being implemented; government housing, schools, and hospitals were being built”.
Venezuela in the 1970s and 80s had a stable democracy, a rising literacy rate, and a flourishing art scene.
Migrants where are attracted by the quality of life and the relative safety, climate, and business opportunities.
Hans and his older brother, Lotar, migrated to Venezuela because their country had been broken by war. The brothers started a paint factory together that proved to be prosperous.

It was fun to read a little bit about the type of girl Adriana was as a child. She wanted to solve mysteries… She knew very young she wanted to be a detective or better yet a spy.
As a child she started a spy club with her cousins.
Little did Adriana know at the time that she would carry her detective talents into her adult life — associated with her own father.

The storytelling - page after page - was engaging- moving and intimate- which became grippingly riveting as Adriana uncovered information- going through his papers, notes, letters, and all those things her father quietly saved - his collections - after his death. So much she didn’t know about his past.

While growing up in Ariana’s family, they were allowed to freely discuss politics, religion, sex, drugs, her parents marriage, divorce…any topic except her father’s past. Hans past was a taboo topic.
It was clear that for Hans to talk about his parents, or his life growing up in Czechoslovakia, was too painful for him.
Growing up, all Ariana knew about her grandparents was that they Czech....who never made it to Venezuela.... and had owned a dull gold watch.

I don’t want to spoil the next 90% of this book....
Trust me... READ IT....it’s an AMAZING journey.
Ariana’s father ‘did’ leave her clues. He even left a puzzle for her in his box. If that wasn’t symbolic, I don’t know what is!
“My father left the world of which he seldom spoke as a riddle for me to unlock, the answers perhaps being the key to his complex and hermetic personality”.

Once Ariana begins her inquiries, and locating people, attempting to assemble a family tree....
I thought of the Russian Nesting doll....( another, another, another clue to discover)
Ariana discovers more than she ever expected.
I was sooo engrossed in this story ... I simply did not know what Ariana was going to uncover.

Fascinating story!!!

“Traumatized people often construct defense mechanisms strong enough to deter those closest to them”.

“Interspersed amid the horrors were wisps of beauty and love”.

[Tammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a marvelously well written memoir of Neumann’s father. Hans was a Venezuelan industrialist of Czech descent, understandably scarred by his experiences during WWII which he refused to speak of. After his death he left his daughter a box of photographs and papers about his life in Berlin during WWII as a Jew hiding under the noses of the Nazis. Piecing together her unknown family members’ experiences (and worse) during the holocaust was a courageous, over decades long undertaking and is as generous and big-hearted as it is filled with stories of secrets, savagery, and despair. Neumann allows us to become acquainted with her family and to know what they suffered as she unearths their lives. Put aside your historical fiction for the moment and read instead a polished, factual account of a family nearly obliterated by the holocaust.

[Dem · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a compelling and impressive book by Ariana Neumann. I am always grateful to authors who take the time to research their family history and share it with us readers. Neumann's memoir reads like a thriller with its many twists and turns but unfortunately its a family memoir and her ancestor's reality.

This was another book chosen for me from a book subscription and another terrific choice by Mrs B's Emporium staff.
Ariana Neumann grows up in Venezuela and is fascinated by the enigma of her father, who is a father and a man to be looked up to. He doesn't speak much about his past but wakes at night screaming in a language she doesn’t recognise. Then, one day, she finds an old identity document bearing his picture – but someone else’s name. Arianna quest for the truth lies in a box of papers he leaves for her when he dies and she painstakingly delves back into his past to piece together his journey from Czechoslovakia to Venezuela.

I couldn't put this one down, not only is the book painstakingly researched, the author has shared numerous family photographs that she collected along the way which are so a bonus for the reader.
It must have been heart-breaking to reader about her ancestors and learn of their fates and how the Holocaust shattered their lives.

Another book that I am delighted to add to my real life book shelf.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

****4.5 Stars rounded up****
"I just work and work so much all the time. It's the only way I have of trying to forget how many did not come back, how few of us left behind."
--- Hans Neumann

This note was written by the author’s father and discovered after his death (at 80) in 2001. He left Ariana a box containing a trove of documents and photographs that revealed a mysterious past which up until then was hidden from his daughter.

With incredible tenacity, Ariana Neumann began the painstaking research to piece together her family’s lost, Jewish-Czech history and her father’s incredible story of surviving the Holocaust. Reconstructing her father’s past led to similar boxes of information contributed by newly discovered living relatives.

This is an extraordinary story of endurance and survival as a Jew from Czechoslovakia when the Nazi Party controlled his country, then transformed as a dictatorship. Twenty-nine members of his family were taken to concentration camps. Only four returned.

I highly recommend this fascinating Holocaust memoir...a chilling and cautionary historical account of the rise of fascism.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I spent my childhood willing a mystery to come my way. When it finally did, it took decades to solve."

I am in awe of this woman's extraordinary tenacity as she researched the history of her father's early life before and during World War II. She grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, where her father had resettled after the war. He never spoke of his life as a Czech Jew, and what he and his family had to endure in the 1930s and 1940s. When Ariana was a girl, she found a mysterious identity card with a picture of her father as a young man, but with a different name. When she asked about it, she was shushed and told not to talk about it. Her father had chosen to bury his painful past and dwell only in the present.

When her father died, he left Ariana a box full of letters, documents, photographs, and keepsakes. It was sort of like a treasure hunt in reverse. She already had the treasures, but she had to do countless hours of research and travel to piece together what all the items meant and re-create her father's life history. Her father wanted her to know what he had been through, but not until after he was gone. She includes photographs of the items in the box, which I found really helps to bring the story and the people to life.

In recent years I have just sort of naturally drifted away from reading novels about World War II and started reading more non-fiction accounts. While I do still enjoy the occasional novel on the subject, I have found the true stories to be far more varied and compelling overall. This book is another story of the astonishing courage and ingenuity of so many people who took unimaginable risks to keep themselves and their loved ones alive.

[Craig Fehrman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got to spend some time on the road with Ariana when we were both promoting our books. She's a brilliant and elegant person, and she's written a brilliant and elegant book. I don't want to spoil too much, but the real-life underpinnings for her memoir are incredible. There are mysteries and twists and heart-breaking realities that surpass anything most of us could make up. But what makes this book so special is that Ariana takes that raw material and elevates it with her lyrical writing and careful observations. (She also does a great job weaving in the bigger historical contexts.) If you want to know more about World War II, the Holocaust, how to solve family secrets, or just how to be a family, this is a terrific read.

[Marialyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a poignant moving tale and a daughter's gift in writing to an adored father and his family and friends.

Ariana Neumann knew her father had secrets. He was a quiet introspective man very fascinated with the concept of time. However, never did she realize growing up in Venezuela, that her father and his family had lived through the worst of times. Being Jewish during the rise of the Nazis was a nightmare and a step into hell on earth. Living in Czechoslovakia, and experiencing the first arrest of many of one of their family members for the crime of bathing in a forbidden river, the family comes to realize the very death hold that the Nazis have on the lives of the Jews. As time moved on, thirty-four Neumann family members were taken and twenty-five of them were exterminated by the Nazis. A family is decimated, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins gone wiped out, lives lost, hearts broken, and nightmares lived over and over again.

Ariana's future father, Hans, lived under the constant threat of being arrested. However, instead of running away from the Nazi strongholds, he went to Berlin, hid right under the Gestapo's noses, and survived. However, the memories were horrible and Hans never could bring himself to reveal to his beloved daughter what had transpired. She knew there was something awful, something that caused such grief in her father that he often retreated into the world of clocks, time pieces, and work.

He built a highly successful business in Venezuela, and when he died he left Ariana a box filled with memorabilia. Ten years later, Ariana embarked upon a journey to learn about her father, his family, and what the contents of that box meant. This memoir is a result of that journey.

Told with elegant prose, Ariana takes the reader on her journey to find and understand her father, learning along the way the meaning of family and the hell that her ancestors experienced. This memoir is tragic but comes highly recommended to those who read, understand, and weep with the massacre that occurred all those years ago.

Thank you to Ariana Neumann, Scribner Publishing, and NetGalley for a copy of this tragic yet inspiring book.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this author’s writing style. I love the humor. It took me a while to get into the narrative but once I did I enjoyed the story/stories. I loved the passages written by her father, Hans. They were incredibly powerful and completely riveting!!!

This is the kind of genealogical research I wish I could have done. I’m in awe.

The author has a lot materials from so many different parts of her family and others. There is a voluminous collection of photos of people and photos of documents and other pictures and many images really enhanced the storytelling. I appreciated all the evidence presented. There is a helpful family tree and map included too! A list of discussion questions were also in my edition.

At first there was a lot about her life, which was interesting, but I felt distant from her father and the others (maybe because when she started she knew virtually nothing about their pasts) but the more I read about the people alive during WWII in Nazi occupied areas the more engaged I became. It took me some time but I grew to know about and deeply care about these people.

I found it interesting that she was doing gung ho research and had wanted to be a detective when she was a kid, but she seemed so uncurious and naïve and ignorant about historical events until she eventually started her inquiries.

This Holocaust narrative stands out because of the author’s father hiding in plain sight with an assumed non-Jewish identity in Berlin for two years during WWII and also because so many family members’ relationships, lives, and fates are revealed. It’s an extraordinary narrative. I also found it interesting and not surprising how so many of the survivors felt lifelong impact from the trauma they’d experienced. What was unexpected was how so many of them were able to flourish and be successful anyway.
This author writes beautifully and this is a quotable book. Here is just one phrase that I appreciate. “Memories, like misfiled documents, are not always where you expect to find them...I learned that detailed questions often did little to trigger specific memories. People returned to distant facts in roundabout ways, along their own winding paths, which seemed more mapped by emotion than by logic.”

ETA: I want to add the other quote I "liked" in my quotes: “Perhaps all remembrance is a process of compilation and creation. Every day we absorb what is around us and assemble observations of a specific time: sounds, smells, textures, words, images, and feelings. Of course, we prioritize and edit as we go, subjective witnesses to our own lives, providing recollections that are often biased and incomplete.”

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Speaking of books that make me say wow, When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains by Ariana Neumann is an amazing look into the life of her family during World War II. I laughed, I teared up, and I learned a lot about the Neumann’s and what it was like during the war.

I was incredibly impressed by When Time Stopped. Neumann's writing is exquisite, and I can tell that so much research went into this book. I listened to the audio, but I also purchased and read the physical book as well which I find necessary to get the full experience. The story she tells is aided by many photos, letters, and other various photocopies of things that she found on her journey to get her father's story during the war, and it really enhanced my entire reading journey. The audio itself was excellent as well and the narrator, Rebecca Lowman, did an amazing job. I loved her voice and inflections, and it could have been the author reading her own book from the way it came to life for me.

There is so much courage in When Time Stopped and I'm so happy that Neumann shared her journey with us. Her dad was an incredible man and this book will tell you so much about life during the war. Her dad may not have been in a camp, but we also get a sense of what went on there thanks to the many stories and letters she shares throughout the book.

If you are looking for a memoir or even just a nonfiction book that talks about WWII I highly recommend When Time Stopped. It was so informative and perfectly written, and the audio was exceptional too. It may be about one family, but there is also so much more. If Neumann chooses to write anything else I am definitely here for it, and I already have another book to add to my top 10 for this year thanks to reading this! Thank you to Ariana Neumann for sharing your father's story along with so many others.

Thank you to Libro.fm and the publisher for my advance listening copy. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

[Sarah Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book tells of a complex story of an entire family’s experiences before, during, and after The Holocaust.
This book is an excellent complex story of an entire family’s experiences before, during, and after the Holocaust. The author brings an entire history alive. She makes it easy to know each person ~ easy for the reader to care for each person. To be invested in them.
The pacing is excellent. The story telling is superb.
Gosh it will break your heart. It will make you cry for how horrible humans can be. It will make you cry for how beautiful people can be.

[Jeanette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. I'll write sufficient reaction when I have a keyboard. Czech located Jewish family 1930's- 1940's memoir. Many 1st person witnesses, voices, letters, official documents and camp experiences as well. Her father intrepid survivor who closes emotional doors on the entire. Real survivor aftermath life personified.

No- not just reaction- but no plot to how he survived. And I'll leave it for you to read and find each of the 5 stars. Structure is very odd in this book as there is not a good way to tell this century length tale but by telling it inside out. Unlike Elie Wiesel or Viktor Frankl who published works of theirs- this tale is actually the much more common course- being written to be discovered only after death. It's the survivor himself/herself who most often closes the door on that entire period, life and happenstance for many, many decades after the facts of worst punctures. He wrote his particular journey details in a 1992 period when his brother, best friend and nephew all died within a two week period and Hans was so devastated he could plunge into a recollection of the pit era. But only on paper.

Ariana didn't even know she was Jewish or existence of many cousins and relatives on 3 other continents. She was raised in Caracas, Venezuela. Her Father lead an intrepid life after WWII's end and she was born from his middle wife after her Father was 50. She's left a box that held the beginnings for a search he left her as part of a more extended legacy. This (surrounding book)is all that she finds in the leads he puts her to task upon.

I'm old. Every survivor of any horrific event I have ever known personally has been like Hans- closing all the emotional doors to a victimhood role. The Holocaust survivors of camps that I have known all did similar. As have every War participant or violent upheaval period person.

Days later I'm still thinking about Lothar, Hans, Zdenka. How do you literally put your life on the line every single day to save others, give up your entire legacy and financial goods in the world to marry under such conditions- and then leave this spouse for another guy on a whim 6 or 7 years later? Of such are humans. That's just a minor tidbit of this decades and decades tale.

[Paul Lockman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ariana Neumann has written a thoroughly engaging book about her father’s experiences in WWII, firstly as Hans Neumann in Czechoslovakia then when he escaped to Berlin to work as a chemist under the false name Jan Sebesta. It was either escape or be deported to the camps. She also weaves in lots of other colourful characters in the Neumann family and life in Venezuela where Hans emigrated after the war. I thought it was a shame that Hans wasn’t prepared to talk about the war much while he was alive. This is understandable and fairly common amongst survivors but Hans led such an interesting life, if only he could have shared his story while he was alive.

Ariana gained the occasional glimpse and insight that her father had a difficult time and had experienced grief and loss but Hans pretty much refused to discuss it. On his passing he did leave Ariana some valuable documents, photos and letters which she interpreted as his OK to do some digging around and look into his former life during WWII. With tenacity and some excellent detective work, Ariana tracked down a lot of Hans’ relatives and descendants who were very generous with their time and whatever possessions they had and the final result is this great tribute to her father. The letters he wrote during the German occupation and when he worked in Berlin are so raw and bring that dark time to life so vividly.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always have to fight back my inclination to turn away from books about the Holocaust, WWII and the horrors of it. So much easier to read a mystery, or the life cycle of a dinosaur or suggestions for a bigger, better peony. But from time to time I am moved by friends, or recommendations, or a media snippet. . .this was recommended by our GR’s dear Elyse W. She stands willingly directing traffic at the intersection of “I’m done with this one!” and “What’s next?” avenues and I found this book. Not only recommended, but available at the library.

Ariana Neumann had me right away, as this really is a kind of mystery. It’s part genealogy, history and family stories: all my favorites. She found her way through family silence and had to wait for key parties to pass in order to begin her search. That is ever a challenge – a researcher wants to hear the actual voice of the research subject, but so often life stills that voice – they just can’t talk about it. So the story is left to others to fill in the negative space. The story that is built is circumstantial, open to error and incorrectness, but the closer one knows that subject, it is amazing how gaps are filled, and quirks are explained. This author does an incredible, detailed and diligent job of filling the silent places in her father’s life. She actually bridges across time, oceans, wars, shifting national boundaries, politics and the deaths of others – many others – as she reweaves family connections. It is honorable, estimable and important work that is done when the hearts of the children turn to their fathers.

When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains was interesting and kept me engaged. I am certain it is a book I will continue to ponder as I consider this family and its many sacrifices and resourceful solutions while facing the challenges created by an evil man with a big idea. For me – reading it now – that dark shadow carries eerie echoes. Hitler encouraged, promoted, touted his war against “others”, carefully isolating his targets with untruths and lies. He flattered and fomented, surrounded by nice people who didn’t want to make a lot of trouble by standing up to him, folks in power who liked the ride fueled by enabling him. . . .until it became something bigger than everyone. Hindsight. That inconvenient and belated perspective, so often filled with bittersweet regret.

I recommend this book highly. I admit to having been left pensive, and rather melancholy. Still. A very good book makes you think, and sometimes even mourn.

[~Bonnie~ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating

While I will say that probably the first 1/3 of the book was a little slow for me, I'm so glad I stuck with it. This was a story both heart wrenching and heart warming. I've always been fascinated by the true accounts of those who were persecuted during WWII yet survived in spite of it all, as well as those who didn't. Those who went thru events in their lives that I, living in 2021, couldn't fathom. I shake my head daily at people today, going thru the pandemic, who think wearing masks, not being able to visit their family or eat in a restaurant, is such a hardship. May we never have to live thru real hardship, yet never forget those who did.

[Kit · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible memoir. The way her memories of her father, and the way that the story of her family during the Holocaust was seamlessly blended was astounding.

I saw a review that says that this wasn't shocking and brutal enough for a Holocaust memoir, and I honestly don't understand. Did we read the same book? Are you really so fatigued that only the cruellest of gratuitous, gruesome tortures are bad enough? It's baffling.

[Deacon Tom (Feeling Better) · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely outstanding book. It had me from the very first chapter. The authors way of writing is unique.

She did an incredible amount of research all from one little box her father left behind. Dad who would not speak of World War II experiences.

I’ve read a lot of holocaust books, but this one was so very different. She poured herself into the story while uncovering facts and looking for lost relatives and friends.

There only enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I lived in the Czech Republic, my name would be Zuzana Škývarová. While I'm actually English/Irish, I fell in love with my husband, Zdeněk, and, after getting married in Prague, I have happily adopted some of his Czech traditions and culture. I've learned to make excellent bramborový salát (potato salad) and rohlíčky (sugar cookies). And I love spending time with my large extended Czech family on our biannual visits to Europe. All of which makes it far, far too easy to experience this book not just as an incredible story but as something that feels a whole lot more personal.

Ariana Neumann was always a curious child, eager for a mystery to solve. With her memoir, she shares what is a haunting yet beautiful love letter to her father, who kept the biggest mystery of all from her. How, as a young Jewish man in Nazi-occupied Prague, Czechoslovakia, he decided the only way to evade being sent to a concentration camp was to go and work in Berlin.

Stop for a second and think about that. Several of your loved ones have already been taken. You can feel the net tightening on you and know you'll be next. And you see a crazy chance to take on a new identity (which is grounds for being executed on the spot), but it means you'll head straight into the belly of the beast. Who would have the guts (driven by desperation) to do that? Neumann's father, Hans, who successfully tricked the Nazis to survive. Hans, who lived to tell the tale, but couldn't bring himself to speak of it.

"When Time Stopped" is hard to categorize. It fits in between the World War II stories (both fictional and real life) that many of us love to read, inspired by the bravery while secretly questioning "Would I be strong enough to do the same?" and the Maus series by Art Spiegelman sharing his father's story of survival. This is a book with two layers: what happened to Hans and his family, and the detective story of Arianna uncovering the mystery over a decade-long search.

There are so many heartbreaking moments in this book, but the one that just keeps coming back to me is Hans relieving the moment when he had to say goodbye to his father. The depth of his pain and the horror of the terror Hans lived under for so many years meant that he could not bear to talk about this period in his life, though he often screamed out in nightmares. We usually focus on the years of terror in our book reading, but "When Time Stopped" forces us to better understand how this must have impacted the survivors for decades.

This would be an excellent book club selection, allowing you to explore how quickly freedom can be lost in a society, the extraordinary courage of women trying to protect their families, and relationships between fathers and daughters.

Thank you to Nan Graham at Scribner and Ariana Neumann for sharing this ARC with me.

[Nadine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memoirs are always hard to review since you’re not evaluating character development, pacing, etc. So, I’ll focus on the writing and the overall picture Ariana Neumann is painting.

When Time Stopped is Ariana Neumann’s research into her father’s past after finding a box of documents that once belonged to him. After combing through the documents and talking to family members she didn’t know were related to her, When Time Stopped paints the picture of a Jewish family doing everything in their power to save themselves from the atrocities of the Second World War.

I thought When Time Stopped would focus almost solely on Hans Neumann, her father, instead it focuses on his family in general and the bleak picture of Europe leading up to and during World War Two. Sometimes Ariana Neumann paints too broad of a picture and gets lost in the details of names and locations making it difficult to follow at times. I had to refer to the family tree at the beginning of the novel multiple times since the Neumann family is a big one.

At around the halfway mark of the novel, Neumann introduces large passages of a memoir her father had started writing before he passed. These are easily the best parts of the memoir. Hans Neumann’s writing rings as authentic in its details of life during the Second World War and his emotional state. It’s truly inspiring and humbling reading his story from his own words. Had he finished his own memoir, I would I have likened it to Night by Elie Wiesel.

When Time Stopped is an engaging historical account of World War Two as told through the eyes of a Jewish family doing everything possible to survive. Their incredible strength and resilience will stay with me forever. Through the inclusion of photos and documents, the Neumann family history is brought to light.



***I received an ARC from the publisher via Netgalley for an honest review.

[Jultri · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5. Remarkable as it may be, the Neumann family's experience was only one of many countless stories of devastating loss and personal acts of heroism that arose from Europe during WWII. What is unique and astonishing about this, is the author's tenacity and dedication in piecing together her family's detailed timeline from before the start of the war, through the German occupation of Czechoslovakia to its liberation in 1945. Through researching and writing this book after her father's death, the author got to know different facets of her father, that he had kept from her while alive. This book is an ode to Hans Neumann, the jovial younger son, known as the 'unfortunate boy' due to his physical clumsiness, who managed to survive the war through a series of fortuitous circumstances. Most of the Neumann family did not. His conviviality did not. But through reading personal correspondences between various family member, interviewing people who had personal connections with Hans and his family before and during the war, and interpreting paper trails left behind, the author managed to bring to life again the vivaciousness of her father as a young man and that of his immediate family. Stunning investigative work made all the harder by the heartbreaking nature of what was slowly revealed to her.

Excellent narration.
Thanks, T. Rosado for bringing this book to my attention.

[Rick B Buttafogo · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are no words that can do justice to this book. My heart hurts at the same time it bursts with joy that Arianna Neumann was able to find so much about her family. The unimaginable tragedy that took place in this world only 75 years ago is something my mind struggles to comprehend. Human beings...said to be the most civilised on the planet, yet something like the Holocaust happened based in the worst kind of hate imaginable. I can’t even imagine not having my grandparents nor my great aunts and uncles as they all hold such great loving , vivid memories for me. Yet here is one of over 6 MILLION families that had their family taken away from them. This book is a must read. With such horrific tragedy that will have you cry at the same time put a smile on your face knowing Ariana found her family and now has stories to share about them. Ariana writes about her meeting the daughters of the man, Frank Novák, who saves the life of her father by hiding him from the Nazis. It struck her that she owed her entire families lives to the extraordinary bravery of their father. Without him, her father Hans would not have survived. When she thanked them, his daughter Eva grabbed her hand and said “please stop. Your thanks are not due, because my father did not do anything extraordinary. He only did the correct thing. He did what everyone should have done. We should all, as a country, have behaved like Frank Novák. It is us who apologise to you that we did not”. There are few Holocaust survivors left living. It is up to all of us to continue to share all we know about it, whether it was our family or not, so future generations never forget where hatred leads.

[Tiffany Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy free of charge. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

When Time Stopped by Ariana Neumann is both a puzzle to be solved filled with family secrets from the past and a memoir that acts as a testament to the love of family. Growing up Ariana didn't know anything about her father's past, but once he passes on she finds a box he left for her filled with documents with a picture of her father under another name and a stamp of one of the most evil men in the world's history, Hitler. This is a memoir of how she pieces together the past of her Czechoslovakian Jewidh father and his family. She tracks down distant relarives and asks them questions sometimes finding more questions than answers. This is a wonderful memoir and I loved the mystery to it all. It was like a novel, but it's true.

[Gabrielle Belisle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is beautiful, intimate, breathtaking and heart breaking. It reads like a novel and yet gives a better sense of what was happening to Jewish families during the Holocaust than any history book I've read. I feel so invested in the Neumann family and their friends, as if I know them personally. More than anything, my takeaway from this book is the love and hope that was so clearly poured into it.

[Raisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding. I really enjoy the honesty, clarity, and journey itself that Ariana Neumann takes readers on in her novel. In these pages you will find heartbreak, confusion, growth, and so much love. Reading about the Holocaust comes on many styles, and in this novel you will experience the raw, undiluted story of one family, and the things taken from them, over decades of time.
I would like to thank Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my unbiased and honest review.

[Lorri · Rating 4 out of 5]

War, Holocaust, Jews, identity, assimilation, love, missing links, family secrets, and so much more, fill the pages of 'When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains'. Neumann takes the reader on a journey to uncover the mysteries regarding her father's background, and events that were too painful for him to articulate.

The memoir was not a fast read for me, but the content was well written, with excellent details, documents, photographs, and history.

[Emma Bleasdale · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most thought provoking memoirs I've ever read, written with descriptive detail of an immensely talented new author. I am looking forward to reading all Ariana Neumann has to write.

[Jazzy Lemon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true story in which Neumann discovers her father's secrets of the war, and is united with his younger self as well as her extended family.

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Growing up in the 1970's in Caracas, Venezuela and nurtured on Enid Blyton’s Famous Five, Ariana always wanted to be a detective or spy. After her father’s death and the birth of her children, she began exploring her father’s past. Her years-long search led her to the 1930s and the 1940s in Czechoslovakia. She met distant relatives, friends, translators, strangers, and researchers as she uncovered her unknown ancestry and discovered relics, pictures, letters, her father’s remembrances, documents, and the Neumann and Haas family trees. A remarkable tale of two Jewish brothers, Hans (her father) and Lotar Neumann (her uncle), who through wits, luck, and the help of many survived the Nazis. Lotar’s gentile wife, Zdenka Jedlickova, was a truly courageous, charming, and independent woman. I highly recommend this engrossing and meticulously researched memoir of a family’s loss and survival.