When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains

Product Description

In this astonishing story that “reads like a thriller and is so, so timely” (BuzzFeed) Ariana Neumann dives into the secrets of her father’s past: “Like Anne Frank’s diary, it offers a story that needs to be told and heard” (Booklist, starred review).

In 1941, the first Neumann family member was taken by the Nazis, arrested in German-occupied Czechoslovakia for bathing in a stretch of river forbidden to Jews. He was transported to Auschwitz. Eighteen days later his prisoner number was entered into the morgue book.

Of thirty-four Neumann family members, twenty-five were murdered by the Nazis. One of the survivors was Hans Neumann, who, to escape the German death net, traveled to Berlin and hid in plain sight under the Gestapo’s eyes. What Hans experienced was so unspeakable that, when he built an industrial empire in Venezuela, he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it. All his daughter Ariana knew was that something terrible had happened.

When Hans died, he left Ariana a small box filled with letters, diary entries, and other memorabilia. Ten years later Ariana finally summoned the courage to have the letters translated, and she began reading. What she discovered launched her on a worldwide search that would deliver indelible portraits of a family loving, finding meaning, and trying to survive amid the worst that can be imagined.

A “beautifully told story of personal discovery” (John le Carré),
When Time Stopped is an unputdownable detective story and an epic family memoir, spanning nearly ninety years and crossing oceans. Neumann brings each relative to vivid life, and this “gripping, expertly researched narrative will inspire those looking to uncover their own family histories” (
Publishers Weekly).

Review

New York Times 
Bestseller

An Amazon Best Books of the Year Pick

“The story Neumann uncovers is worthy of fiction with hairpin plot twists, daredevil acts of love and unexpected moments of humor in dark times. Given the slew of colorful characters and dramatic details, she could have turned her painstaking research into a historical novel. Instead she has written a superb family memoir that unfolds its poignant power on multiple levels. Yes, her account of one Jewish-Czech family’s race to outwit the Nazis makes for thrilling reading. But just as important is her lucid investigation of the nature of memory, identity and remembrance.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“At times the revelations are so extraordinary to modern eyes that the memoir has an almost fictional feel.”
—
Financial Times

“A beautifully told story of personal discovery, of almost unimaginable human bravery and sacrifice, and a harrowing portrait of living, dying, and surviving under the yoke of Nazism.”

—John le Carré
, author of Agent Running in the Field

“Evocative . . . Neumann discovers her Jewish roots and pieces together the incredible, heartbreaking family history her father never told her.”

—Real Simple

“Utterly riveting: Ms. Neumann’s memoir reads like a detective novel as she unravels her late father’s complex, agonizing yet inspiring trajectory.”

—Claire Messud, author of The Emperor’s Children and The Woman Upstairs

“Elegantly structured . . . the author reconstructs with considerable literary finesse the life of her father.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Extraordinary in its reach and its depth. I felt such kinship with the way in which Ariana Neumann moved through the world. . . . Absolutely remarkable.”

—Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes

“Deeply moving . . . This gripping, expertly researched narrative will inspire those looking to uncover their own family histories.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Ariana Neumann’s beautiful, meticulously researched memoir is an extraordinarily moving story of a family’s lost history, a father’s well-kept secret, and a daughter who pieces it all together with courage, tenacity, and most of all, love.”

—Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance, Devotion, and Still Writ