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Czech’em Out Book Club

December 18, 2023 @ 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Join NCSML volunteer Steve Pederson in the Skala Bartizal Library this month where we’ll discuss When Time Stopped by Ariana Neumann. Czech’em Out Book Club meets on the third Monday of each month following the reading of each months selected book.

About the book

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.

About the moderator, Steve Pederson

Steve is an UW Eau Claire graduate with a history major and a Scandinavian studies minor. He taught U.S. history, economics, and advanced placement American history in two Wisconsin high schools.  Living in Iowa for the past 19 years, Steve is currently employed as a tour guide for the Walter’s Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian home at Cedar Rock State Park in rural Buchanan County.

Cost: Free

Would you like to join from afar to take part in this book club? Please join us on Zoom at the following link!

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85795134158?pwd=7F3mh0daxQME2pzxbxpDUIzhL6L96P.1

Meeting ID: 857 9513 4158  Passcode: 2222

By Phone: One tap smart phone: +16469313860,,85795134158#,,,,*2222# US

Details

Date:
December 18, 2023
Time:
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

Venue

Skala Bartizal Library
1400 Inspiration Pl SW
Cedar Rapids, IA 52404 United States
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Phone
319-362-8500
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