A daughter with an instinct for investigation uncovers her father’s past in WHEN TIME STOPPED, a moving saga of war and the Holocaust.

Ariana Neumann was a lucky child, growing up in Venezuela, the daughter of an ingenious, entrepreneurial father whose professional life brought prosperity. Yet his private life remained mysterious. The girl’s mother often cautioned her not to ask Hans about his troubled past, and to ignore his sometimes somber, even fearful demeanor. The first real clue, discovered by a child so interested in detective work that she formed her own spy club, came when she dared to open a cardboard box, finding there a passport with her father’s photo --- but with a different name and a different birthday.

"The record [Ariana Neumann] brings to light is a unique portrait of the horrors of the Holocaust from the inside --- never to be forgotten as long as such accounts remain."

Later, as a young woman, Ariana visited a synagogue in Prague where she saw her father’s name written on the wall with many others. His birth year was there, yet there was no record of his death --- indeed, at the time, he was alive and working in Caracas --- but she had never heard mention of any Jewish connection. After his death, the cardboard box was finally opened, and gradually Ariana, by then an established journalist, began to examine every scrap of paper, find translators to aid in the fact-seeking process, and learn, bit by bit, the story of Hans and his harrowing war years in his native Czechoslovakia and in Germany.

Ariana unfolds an almost daily account, some of it drawn from her father’s own writings, of what he, his parents and his brother suffered with the rise of the Third Reich. Slowly, small regulations such as where Jews could live, go to school and even swim burgeoned into massive relocations. Hans’ mother was forced to work in the concentration camp at Terezin; many times, the family bolstered her circumstances but ultimately could not keep her and her husband from Auschwitz.

As the war ground on, Hans and his brother Lotar, surviving because of their youth and talents in the chemical industry, lost 25 of their family of 34, murdered in Hitler’s “final solution.” Hans took a bold path, first hiding, then --- through the remarkable help of a friend --- assuming a non-Jewish identity and going to work in Berlin, the heart of the killing machine. After the war, Hans and Lotar emigrated to South America where they prospered by reestablishing their chemical business.

Reading WHEN TIME STOPPED is painful, yet imbued with a sense of hope about the worst instincts of humanity challenged and overcome with small moments of insight, intelligence and incredible kindness. Family solidarity played a significant role in Hans’ survival and reinvention, and with her book, Ariana Neumann extends that solidarity to her own and future generations. Her efforts in reconstructing the exploits of her father, grandfather, uncle and cousins involved wide travel, determination and deep resolve. The record she brings to light is a unique portrait of the horrors of the Holocaust from the inside --- never to be forgotten as long as such accounts remain.