When Time Stopped, Ariana Neumann, author, Rebecca Lowman, narrator
Ariana Neumann did an amazing amount of research over decades, in order to discover her father’s true past and name, and in so doing, her own heritage. Brought up without much religious foundation, she had no idea of her Jewish background until she discovered a box with her father’s documents, documents he had carefully kept secret from his family until his death. Neumann did not discover most of the information until more than a decade after his death when a box she had seen as a child, reappeared in her life. With this box, began a research project which exposed relatives with whom she never had contact and a religion which she never knew she had a connection.
Through careful investigation, she discovered unknown relatives who had documents and letters that enabled her to retrace her father’s history in Europe. Neumann had been raised in Venezuela and never knew her father had been born in Czechoslovakia, nor that he lived through the German occupation as a Jew on the run with another identity. Although his family once numbered more than 30, she discovered that most of them were murdered.
Because of the documents and letters, some new information was provided which I believe was very enlightening. The book will inform the reader of the plan Nazi Germany masterminded that enabled the murder of so many innocents, of the steps some took to protect those innocents and of the lucky intervention that often made the difference between life and death.