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February 9, 2020 @ 4:00 pm
Ariana Neumann
In this remarkably moving memoir Ariana Neumann dives into the secrets of her father’s past: years spent hiding in plain sight in war-torn Berlin, the annihilation of dozens of family members in the Holocaust, and the courageous choice to build anew.
In 1941, the first Neumann family member was taken by the Nazis, arrested in German-occupied Czechoslovakia for bathing in a stretch of river forbidden to Jews. He was transported to Auschwitz. Eighteen days later his prisoner number was entered into the morgue book.
Of thirty-four Neumann family members, twenty-five were murdered by the Nazis. One of the survivors was Hans Neumann, who, to escape the German death net, traveled to Berlin and hid in plain sight under the Gestapo’s eyes. What Hans experienced was so unspeakable that, when he built an industrial empire in Venezuela, he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it. All his daughter Ariana knew was that something terrible had happened.
When Hans died, he left Ariana a small box filled with letters, diary entries, and other memorabilia. Ten years later Ariana finally summoned the courage to have the letters translated, and she began reading. What she discovered launched her on a worldwide search that would deliver indelible portraits of a family loving, finding meaning, and trying to survive amid the worst that can be imagined.
When Time Stopped is an unputdownable detective story and an epic family memoir, spanning nearly ninety years and crossing oceans. Neumann brings each relative to vivid life. In uncovering her father’s story after all these years, she discovers nuance and depth to her own history and liberates poignant and thought-provoking truths about the threads of humanity that connect us all.
In conversation with Adriana Meneses Imber
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About the Author:
Ariana Neumann was born and grew up in Venezuela. She previously worked as a foreign correspondent for Venezuela’s The Daily Journal and her writing has also appeared in The European. She currently lives in London with her family. When Time Stopped is her first book.
About the Conversant:
Adriana Meneses Imber graduated from Communication at UCAB (Caracas, Venezuela) and has a post-graduate degree in Arts Administration from Drexel University, (Philadelphia, USA). Since the year 1979, she has worked as a reporter for the Cultural Pages of El Universal, a task that continued while studying in the United States. She took Art Appreciation courses at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia. In 1987 she opened the gallery Ernst Alexander in Washington DC. From 1990 to 1995 worked as Director of Culture of the Government of the Federal District, Venezuela, where she developed an extensive program of exhibitions, musical events, and training workshops, among other activities. In 1995 she became Director-founder of the Museum Jacobo Borges, unique institution in its genre whose profile is to developed a series of exhibitions and activities that link the artistic to social issues. In that position Meneses remained for eleven years. from 2006 to 2007, directed the Museum Carlos Cruz Diez later became the coordinator for Special Projects for IARTES. In August, 2015 moved to the United States, where she has been organizing exhibitions and is part of the I AM MONUMENTS Institutional Assets and Monuments team and part of the Arts Connection board. Meneses is the co-curator of the exhibition “For Now, Contemporary Venezuelan Art of the Miami Diaspora”, on view at the Coral Gables Museum through March 15th, 2020.
This event will be followed by a tour of the exhibition For Now; Contemporary Venezuelan Art of the Miami Diaspora at The Coral Gables Museum
About the exhibition:
For Now…brings together key Venezuelan artists who have settled in Miami throughout the last twenty years. From different generations and working on a great variety of mediums and topics, these creators are part of a complex, ever-growing art scene that has made a huge impact in South Florida.
Some of the works in the show relate to the experience of the Diaspora. They explore topics such as memory, silence, and the complexities of the nation left behind. Another group of pieces pose formal concerns. In them, there is a visible dialogue with the strong Venezuelan tradition of Geometric Abstraction. Yet others are more in tune with broader concerns within the local and international art scene.
Curated by: Adriana Meneses and Yuneikys Villalonga. FREE.
