When time stopped: a memoir of my fathers war and what remains by Ariana Neumann 2019 322 pages 17/5/20 to Edit
In Prague at the Pinkas Synagogue when she visited as a tourist saw her fathers name on a memorial list but date and place of death had a question mark. Her father said "I tricked them" There was a time that you had daily flights from Caracas to NY, London Frankfort, Rome and Madrid. Even Concord had regular flights from Paris during the oil producing days.
In 1946 Venezuela accepted displaced Europeans. Her father was incongruous in that he had a pale skin and heavy European accent. Her mothers who was 20 years younger. Her mothers family had arrived in Venesuela in 1611.Her father was the president of Museo de Bellas Artes had a fine art collection. He set up a successful paintcompany with his brother. In 1993 Fernanado Botero,a Colombian painted his portrait.
Ariana as a kid with friends decided to play at being detectives.
She found a box of documents with a Nazi stamped photo of her father and the name Jan Sebasta Oct1942. Her father always had unuttered fears of the past and was almost 50 when she was born
She heard a lot of Czech and it came to her easily despite her father saying it was useless.
He sold out his business Montana Paints but kept shares in it but in 1996 it collapsed. He set up a daily press against Chavez. He died and was cremated on 11 Sept 2001.
1999 till his death in 2013 Hugo Chavez was President of Venezuela and created socialist havoc.
Her father had a watch given to him by his father it was a John Arnold who manufactured chronometers - these were accurate to be used in navigation. She realized that she had no grandparents on her fathers side, but this was not a subject for exploration with her father. Instead they could discuss politics, sex,drugs or the parents marriage. In the UK she met a women who knew very little of her family left behind in the holocaust, her answer was "Because my parents never gave me permission". Her father had intentionally wanted her to get his war years documents. Her father's brother Lother's daughter Madla also left a trove of letters. Finding out about those before us had as much to do with the present, future as well as the past. Her great uncle Victor Neuman who arrived in California in 1919 had been an engineer who helped the Austro Hungarian army build bridges.. She traced his grandson Greg Neuman in San Diego who was unaware of his Jewish heritage but also was left a box. Her son looked like her father as a child. She had a half brother Michal born in Prague in 1947 to Mila as she was 23 years older than him only got to know him when she became an adult.
1989 November the Berlin Wall fell. when she had toured Prague with her father she discovered that his family had set up the Montana Paint Factory in 1921. He was taken out by Zdenek to a reunion and said that his friend had saved his life.
Victor wrote from the US asking them to emigrate and Richard got a Non Quota immigration visa. Many Czechs knew of Jews and kept quiet, but the Czech Fascist association Vlajka helped the Nazi's.
Her father sent her to a secular American school in Lugano ,Switzerland with kids from 50 countries and different religions. After 1991 he got a message that his friend Zdenek died and then wrote the Berlin memoir. She also discovered they had relatives in France, Israel, England and Czech Rep.
Instead of going to be deported he was in hidden room at the factory, that's where he studied the clock. Then with his friends Zdenek passport took a night train first class (was hardly checked at the border) to Berlin walked into the paint factory and said he was a chemist. He posted his friend passport back and had forged paper of Jan Sabeste. The factory made protective coating for Junkers Ju 88.S The Nazi in charge had friends in all different offices and got him work papers, health insurance and residence permit. Czechs and Slavs were considered lapsed Arian while Poles and Russians untemenschen. He even got a Gestapo clearance in Prague he had no criminal record they never knew Jan had never existed and he survived by using his imagination.
1943 November the Battle of Berlin, British planes at night first dropping a "Christmas tree" then others dropped bombs. American planes in the day. For 14 month he and Zdenek were part of the "volunteer' fire fighter when nobody saw the let the fires burn. Water , electricity phones etc were renewed within a day after a bombing, people started moving out of Berlin.
A Dutch worker approached him to get information that would get through to the British. A trial rocket was made a lacquer was used, but he real research he heard was at Peenemunde. This information he passed on and later heard that this V2 liquid rocket base had been bombed.
His parents were sent to Terezin, when 476 Danish Jews were sent there the Danish Red Cross sent inspectors but a false display convinced them all was well.
Prague was accidently bombed by the Americans and 700 civilians were killed. With the war ending the US on the west and Russians on the east he got a letter of recommendation from paint factory Warnecke & Bohm when he resigned. In Prague there were still a few German soldiers. There was an uprising against the Nazi's and the Luftwaffe bombed Prague while German soldiers massacred civilians .
1945 8th May the Russians invaded and Terezin, and Czechoslovakia liberated .
1948 Feb Communists seized power. Their uncle in the US advised them to go to Venezuela as it was undeveloped and had place for a paint industry. They sold their property and house in Lidice. The son of the new owner managed to open the safe and kept all the document which he handed to her._
