When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains

by Ariana Neumann

classmate once solemnly pronounced that I was the product of sin. With equal solemnity, I told her that she was the product of imbeciles.

“Sometimes you have to leave the past where it is—in the past.”

The human spirit fought on and continued to produce poignant works in a place that was designed to numb, silence and dehumanize.

The organizational structure was a clever tactic, since it helped create the illusion that the Jews remained in control of their fate

eighty parcels:

He only did the correct thing. Simply,

He would go to Berlin. He would not have to remain invisible any longer.

It was then that he had comprehended the importance of time.

I grew to enjoy these moments of quiet rebellion and complicity with my father, as we marked time together, alone in other people’s houses.

was unable to have the past and the present connect in any way.

Once again, the unfortunate boy from Prague was saved by luck.

his life had been saved during the war by others’ lack of imagination.

Zdenka entered the camp a second time.

As my new Dutch friend had remarked, it was all entirely unreal.

Two Czech boys with their secrets. Two pranksters grinning, in their shorts, in front of a symbol of German power.

there is nothing like the comfort of numbers, united in nationality and hatred, to embolden one.

none of the Red Cross visitors asked a question sufficiently probing to establish the truth.

The boy who had come to Berlin in the spring of 1943 was not the man who, two years later, fought his way through the crowds to leave it.