“Utterly riveting: Ms. Neumann's memoir reads like a detective novel, as she unravels her late father's complex, agonizing yet inspiring trajectory. Conjuring the lives of her relatives murdered in the Holocaust, she brings their lost world to vivid life.”

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

“Truly exceptional…a work of very great talent.”

—Jon Snow, journalist and Channel 4 television host

“Ariana Neumann’s story may strike a chord, and rightly so….When Time Stopped is more than just history. It’s a warning.”

—Michael Palin

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

“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 Writing

“I’ve read countless memoirs. I’ve read hundreds of books about the Holocaust and mysteries and detective stories and rigorously researched tomes of history and psychological studies of the effects of trauma. But never in my reading life have I ever come across anything akin to this magical, brilliant, and gripping work of art.”

—Deborah Copaken, author of The Red Book

“Through her painstaking work Neumann takes lifeless fragments ensuring her family's obscurity, and magically brings them back to life in this carefully woven beautifully written tapestry. This is a work of resistance against oblivion, a reminder against forgetting, an investigation driven by true love.”

—Stephen D. Smith, PhD, Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation

“An astonishing family memoir that will imprint itself on your psyche as only the best books can, forever changing the way you look at your own family. With a mastery of the dogged art of research rarely seen, and with an exquisite narrative sensibility to match, Ariana Neumann has breached the hidden surface of her family’s tumultuous past and brought not only their tragedies and sorrows, but also their joys and loves, to indelible light.”

—John Burnham Schwartz, author of The Red Daughter, The Commoner and Reservation Road

“A love letter to a father who, out of sheer will and determination, did not allow the Nazis to destroy him—and who rose to become one of Venezuela's most successful industrialists. Part literary memoir, part mystery tale, Ariana Neumann's tribute to her father is a classic story of redemption and love.”

—Janine di Giovanni, author of The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria

“Remarkable…Through painstaking, meticulous research Neumann tells the true story—part memoir, part history—of her heart-wrenching and ultimately life-affirming journey in uncovering her family’s long hidden past.”

—Georgia Hunter, author of We Were the Lucky Ones

“Beautifully written…One of the most powerful and profoundly moving family stories of the Holocaust to have been published in many years and a must read.”

—Dan Stone, Director of the Holocaust Research Institute, Royal Holloway, University of London

“Ariana Neumann has given us a gripping true story…This is nonfiction that reads like a detective thriller.”

—Tilar J. Mazzeo, author of Irena’s Children

“A gripping, heart-wrenching journey back to wartime Prague and Berlin. Ariana Neumann has written the book that her remarkable father simply couldn’t.”

—Tom Gross, former Prague and Jerusalem correspondent, Sunday Telegraph

‘When Time Stopped is 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 Carre

‘Ariana Neumann’s story may strike a chord, and rightly so. The slow and pitiless brutality that took hold of much of Europe in the 1930s is a story that can never be told too often. What makes this account so effective is that it’s personal and, because of the dogged extensiveness of her research, Neumann reminds us of the small details that make the Nazi persecution of the Jews all the more chilling.

It’s not always a grim story. Alongside anger and despair there is love and hope. But the message is stark. This is the way bullies work. When Time Stopped is more than just history. It’s a warning.’

– Michael Palin