The story...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, Neumann 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 ... Neumann’s book obeys its own exquisite clockwork.
Neumann shares the results of her meticulous research in a brilliantly heart-wrenching memoir ... filled with heartbreaking, spine-tingling stories. But Neumann’s treasure trove of personal history isn’t solely responsible for the book’s appeal: she’s a gifted, visceral writer as well, bringing each character alive as they experience the horrors of World War II. When Time Stopped is a notable new memoir not to be missed.
The detail in the lengthy documents [Hans] left, especially dozens of pages about living and working behind enemy lines...is astonishing. This book will be an important addition to Holocaust literature ... Neumann has a gift for observation and an eye for specificity ... On the whole Neumann avoids speculation, but naturally, questions remain ... But she has borne witness, which is everyone’s duty. We have heard of many of the atrocities recounted in these pages before. But we must go on hearing them. This is a very fine book indeed.
... profound, gripping, and gut-wrenching ... Letters from [Neuman's] grandparents, who were transported to Theresienstadt and in their faith and optimism remained steadfastly strong for their family, are especially powerful. Neumann describes scenes of Bubny Station, Kristallnacht, and life in the concentration camps with utterly painstaking detail, placing readers there. She learns about the past her father kept hidden from her throughout his lifetime. This heartbreaking and unforgettable memoir belongs in every library for the important history Neumann unearths. Like Anne Frank’s diary, it offers a story that needs to be told and heard.
Many writers have sought to address the horrors of the Holocaust. Yet while treading a familiar path, Neumann manages to bring an engaging perspective through the personal nature of her journey of discovery ... Neumann’s efforts to tell Hans’s story chronologically, rather than in the order she unravelled the mystery, is especially effective. At times the revelations are so extraordinary to modern eyes that the memoir has an almost fictional feel ... This is Ariana Neumann’s story as much her father’s, as she recounts her journey of discovering who she is and where she has come from. Now, 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the author is able to recount experiences that were too painful to be repeated by those who actually lived through them.
With determination and the help of translators, genealogists, historians, and family members, [Neumann] reconstructs her father’s astonishing story of survival ... Neumann’s eloquent, skillfully researched book will appeal to many, especially those interested in family histories and the lives of Holocaust survivors.
In this elegantly structured debut, the author reconstructs with considerable literary finesse the life of her father, who owned 297 pocket watches—a unifying motif and organizing metaphor that readers may see as his metaphorical attempt to replace time stolen by Hitler. She also offers vivid images of Terezín (renamed Theresienstadt by the Nazis), where her grandparents were interned before they died in Auschwitz. Because Terezín was nominally a transit and labor camp rather than a death camp, prisoners could send and receive letters and packages, and the author includes poignant excerpts of some of the letters ... A multilayered memoir written from the unusual perspective of a Holocaust survivor’s daughter who grew up in Latin America.
