A Box of Secrets Led to the Story of Her Father’s Painful Wartime Past

nonfiction WHEN TIME STOPPED A Memoir of My Father’s War and What RemainsBy Ariana Neumann Growing up as the child of a wealthy Czech-born industrialist in Caracas, Ariana Neumann wanted for nothing — except mystery. Her parents, luminaries of Venezuelan society, doted on her. She had the run of their house with its modern art collection and lush garden. But she dreamed of being a detective, and when she was 8 formed a spy club with cousins and friends devoted to investigating puzzling occurrences: an incongruously placed cheese rind, say, or a suspiciously misfiled LP.

One day, their play led her to a box in her father’s study that contained an identity card. On it, a Hitler stamp, a photo of her father as a young man and a name and date of birth that didn’t match his. In “When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father’s War and What Remains,” Neumann unravels the mystery of that identity card. The story she 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, 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.

The discovery of the identity card terrified Neumann as a girl. Her mother, 20 years younger than her father, had never seen it. And she knew better than to ask her father. She had already learned not to bring up the subject of his nightmares, which some nights left him screaming in Czech, or the single photograph he kept of his parents, which showed them seated at a table covered in documents, looking isolated and sad.

As a young adult, Neumann unlocked new clues but they only deepened the mystery. On a visit to Prague she saw her father’s name, Hans Neumann, on a list of Jewish victims of Nazism. In the spot where the other entries showed the date of death, his had a question mark. He accompanied her on another visit to the Czech Republic where he was taciturn and tense, except for one moment at a fence overlooking a railway, where he broke down in silent sobs.