In any case, baptisms were futile as, for the Nazis, Judaism was not a choice but a “race” determined by your grandparents. What you believed or practiced did not matter; what was important was your genetic makeup. The Nuremberg Laws had provided a definition that enabled persecution. Anyone who belonged to the Jewish community or was married to a Jew fell within the parameters if they had at least two Jewish grandparents. People who were not registered in the community or had intermarried needed to have three Jewish grandparents. With four Jewish grandparents, all the Neumanns clearly fit the definition.
And on March 15, 1939, the thunder finally became a storm. As the day dawned at five a.m., Prague radio broadcast a message from the Czechoslovakian president:
The German army infantry and aircraft are beginning the occupation of territory of the Republic at six a.m. today. Their advances must nowhere be resisted. The slightest resistance will cause unforeseen consequences and lead to the intervention becoming utterly brutal. Prague will be occupied at 6:30 a.m.
CHAPTER 4 A New Reality
On March 16, 1939, a triumphant Adolf Hitler was photographed waving from the alcove window of the castle that sits atop Prague and that had filled Kafka with dread thirty years prior. Czechoslovakia, the führer proclaimed, had ceased to exist. Its territories had been divided into the Slovak Republic and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Prague was the capital of the German-administered Protectorate, and this was all part of the Nazi realm, the Reich.
By then, Lotar had long since abandoned any dreams of drama school. In the autumn of 1936, just as his father had wanted, he started to study chemical engineering at the Czech Technical College. One morning at the end of March 1939, he walked into his classroom and found an envelope addressed to Der Jude Lotar Neumann. Inside was a letter informing him that he must leave the school. It was not an official note—the decree that banned Jews from schools and universities did not come until a few months later—but it was enough for Lotar to feel threatened. Halfway through his degree, he stopped attending his lessons and started work in the relative safety of the family’s paint factory. Otto had been left alone at the helm of Montana when his brother Richard had received his visa and moved to the U.S. earlier that year. Lotar’s presence at the factory provided Otto with another much needed and trustworthy pair of hands. It also meant that Lotar was receiving a salary, which gave him the added momentum to ask Zdenka to marry him.
Months passed before Zdenka mentioned the engagement to her family. Her family had told her over and over that it was madness to date a Jew. She was beautiful, educated, rich. She could have her pick of anyone in Europe.
“How is it possible?” Zdenka’s cousin related that her father had exclaimed in despair. “With all the boys who like her, why would she choose to be with a Jew?”
It was not that Zdenka’s family was anti-Semitic. They had met and even liked the Neumanns. Her mother adored Lotar, who would visit her every week, always bring her a bouquet of violets and show her his photographs and make her laugh. But as charming as he was, this was her eldest daughter, and times were difficult enough for everyone. Zdenka’s mother had tried to reason with her: “He needs friends, Zdenka, not love. You both have to use your heads, especially now, with all that is going on. If you really want to help him and his family, you can do more as a friend.”
The family folklore is that even her grandmother, who constantly championed Zdenka’s independent spirit, had on this occasion been stern: “In these awful times, it would be folly to be led by one’s heart.”
Zdenka had no doubt that her family would be opposed to the marriage, and her instincts, as usual, were correct. She and Lotar therefore arranged it all quietly. It was about being together; they had never wanted a big affair. They met with the friendly priest at the Basilica of St. James, who once more agreed to help. On hearing the news, Otto had been dismissive, while Ella laughed and wept with joy—she had expected it all along. Despite Lotar’s protestations, Zdenka had thought it best not to inform her father about the wedding at all. She waited until the last minute to tell her mother—the Saturday morning of the wedding itself, once her father had left for their country house in Řevnice. Humming with fear and excitement, she stormed into her mother’s room with the news. Her mother almost fainted with shock. Zdenka had not given her enough time, she said, and she could not possibly attend the ceremony. And when Zdenka told her grandmother, who at all times was supportive and loving, the reaction was similar. She also could not attend the ceremony, she said, not if Zdenka’s parents were not there. But as she cried with her granddaughter, she yielded and offered to host a large celebratory dinner in her house at 20 Podskalská Street that evening. She immediately enlisted her maids, Růžena and Anežka, to make preparations and then rushed to Šafařík, the confectioner downstairs, where she bought half of their display of desserts and cakes.
And so it was that on Saturday afternoon, May 12, 1939, at the Basilica of St. James in the center of an occupied Prague, Lotar and Zdenka became husband and wife. The Neumann family and Zdenka’s sister, Marie, accompanied them. They were married by Josef Fiala, who had, a few months prior, baptized Lotar, Ella, and Hans. That evening there was an elegant party attended by friends and some family from both sides. Zdenka’s mother and sister joined them at the dinner after all. Everyone close to the couple was there except Zdenka’s father, who had been told what was happening over the telephone and had refused to return from the countryside.
Lotar and Zdenka at the dinner after their wedding, May 12, 1939
Every account of the day suggests that the new couple exuded such happiness that it suffused all those around them. For all those present, Zdenka and Lotar’s love was so evident that no one that evening even entertained the thought that it was insane. It was obvious, when you saw how they looked at each other, that they belonged together.
Nevertheless, the torrent of new restrictions scuppered their plans for the future. Their intention had been to buy a home in which to start their lives together, but in the face of the general uncertainty, the prohibitions affecting Jews, and their efforts to make the move to America, Lotar and Zdenka decided to live in the Prague apartment by the factory. The family’s live-in maid had moved to the house in Libčice to help Ella, so they had space to enlarge Lotar’s room. They had repainted it in a brighter color to reflect the morning light. Lotar had specially built wooden shelves to allow for Zdenka’s book collection to be combined with his own.
The family left them alone for a week together in Prague. That clutch of stolen days was the extent of their honeymoon, but they loved it all the same. They were tourists in their own city. They drifted through the cobbled streets of Prague as if they did not know them. They discovered new corners in which to hide and embrace. They fed the swans by the riverbank and hiked up to the Strahov Monastery through the steep gardens that overlook the city, and across into the castle grounds.
Lotar took dozens of portraits of Zdenka, and they used his Kodak 8mm cine camera to film each other as they explored the city anew. Zdenka was always elegant and smiling, Lotar so happy and proud. They went to the movies at the cinema on Karlova Street. They let time slip by as they sipped drinks and watched the crowds drift past. They spent delicious hours in the quiet of the apartment, reading poems, dancing, singing, and laughing, always laughing. Lotar had long dreamed of going to India. He wanted to visit the palaces that he had read about with Zdenka and to take photographs, but that trip would have to come later, when things were calmer, more certain.