A grateful letter from his colleagues praising him for his hard work and sense of justice remains in the files today. By all accounts, Lotar, who had always tended to melancholy, was deeply debilitated by his experiences during the war. His sorrow and a misplaced sense of guilt at having survived were obvious to those who knew him then and later in his life.
Zdenka too had been acutely marked by the war. Five years of hiding and subterfuge, the sustained efforts to help her friends and the Neumanns to survive the war, and the loss of her beloved in-laws had all taken their toll. She was exhausted by the burden of being the constant source of strength and support. Lotar in 1945 was a very different man from the one she had fallen in love with in 1936. Perhaps a love as pure as theirs was incompatible with the people they had become.
As Zdenka recalled in her writings, everything came to a head in 1947. Lotar had traveled to Switzerland on business for a week and, upon returning to Prague, collected Zdenka from the fund’s office with an enormous bouquet of gorgeous green flowers. There, Lotar encountered and chatted with his old colleagues. With his characteristic eye for detail, he noticed that his friend the lawyer Viktor Knapp’s wristwatch was missing its protective glass. Later that day, when he and Zdenka arrived home and turned on the lights in their apartment on Trojanova Street, Lotar spotted two tiny shards glinting up at him from the living room floor. As he knelt to pick them up, he realized they were unmistakably fragments of glass from a broken watch face.
Incapable of lying to him, an agonized Zdenka collapsed on the floor next to him and explained that Viktor’s watch had accidentally smashed when they had been together. She confessed that, while working alongside each other, she had fallen in love with him and he with her. She explained to a dumbstruck Lotar that she wanted to be with Viktor, who in turn had promised to leave his wife. Lotar was crushed.
Viktor was true to his word. Zdenka promptly asked for a divorce.
The anxieties and grief of previous years had almost overwhelmed Lotar. This further blow of an unexpected betrayal by his wife and his friend plunged him into the most profound gloom. He moved out of their apartment immediately. Scant information remains about the period that followed, as no one in my family spoke about Lotar and Zdenka’s relationship again. All I know is that the official records show that Lotar enlisted in the army as a reserve, went away for months for military training, and, in a state of physical and emotional dislocation, moved residence five times between September 1947 and June 1948.
The family and friends who had all relied on and embraced Zdenka were equally distraught at the news. Hans, Míla, and the few remaining cousins gathered around Lotar. Despite wrestling with traumas of their own, they tried their best to support him and help him regain strength.
Zita had just opened a small boutique designing women’s clothing. Trying to cheer up Lotar when he returned from army training, she introduced him to a pretty and sparkly-eyed nineteen-year-old named Věra, who worked as a model and also helped at the shop. Much to everyone’s astonishment, the new relationship flourished. Věra admired Lotar and affectionately hung on his every word. With her soft-spoken manner, she managed to coax the broken young man back to happiness. He was besotted by her youth, beauty, and charm. More than anything, he desperately needed her nurturing and positive presence in his life.
The photograph from Věra’s identification card after her marriage to Lotar in 1948
On June 19, 1948, Zdenka and Lotar signed divorce papers once more, only this time the separation was real. A mere three weeks later, Lotar and Věra quietly married. It was a modest gathering, but the family was both thrilled and relieved that Lotar had managed to find a supportive and beautiful woman with whom to rebuild his life.
I do not know precisely when the Neumann brothers decided to leave Czechoslovakia, but little remained to hold them there. Their family had been torn apart by the war. Lotar’s marriage to Zdenka had disintegrated. Perhaps carrying on in the country where all those they had lost had lived just proved too difficult. Every step at Montana, in Libčice, on the cobbled streets of Prague would have elicited memories. There must have been ghosts everywhere.
It was not a swift decision. Everyone who knew them in Prague could see that they were bent on rebuilding their lives there after the war. Lotar was part of the official reconstruction programs. Together with Hans, they hired employees, restarted production, and completed the process of restitution for the Montana factory. They reclaimed the ownership of the apartment and the country house. Throughout the immediate postwar years, they remained in constant touch with their uncles Richard and Victor in California. They continued, as they had during the war, to research possible countries where the Czech family could start a new life as refugees.
Perhaps it seemed that there was more hopefulness and opportunity elsewhere. The Communist putsch must also have had an impact on their decision. The Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, buoyed by anti-fascist sentiment and the fact that the Soviets had liberated Prague. Perhaps politics proved to be the Neumann brothers’ accelerator. The decision clearly had been made by the autumn of 1948, when Hans and Lotar sold the house in Libčice, complete with the contents of the safe, to the Peřina family.
So, in late 1948, Hans and Míla, with their one-year-old son, Michal, and Lotar, accompanied by a very pregnant Věra, left Czechoslovakia behind. They departed separately to reconvene in Zurich, Switzerland, by January 1949. Of all the destinations considered, Venezuela seemed to be the best choice. While many Europeans migrated to the U.S., Venezuela lacked a developed paint industry and thus presented a real opportunity to the Neumanns for a new start. It also welcomed immigrants from war-torn Europe. A letter to Hans and Lotar from Uncle Richard in January 1949 reads:
My dear ones,
Welcome to free Switzerland. As I am writing this, you are probably already there and have completed the first, most difficult, step on your way to a new life.
I have not yet received a single piece of news from Benes, who is organizing things for you in Caracas; he must have acclimatized himself so much that he has started to act like the locals who put everything off till “mañana.” Time there does not seem to matter so much. Nonetheless, a letter from him must be on the way and I will confirm once everything is set.
In any case it does seem that Venezuela is the best option among the countries that come into consideration. However, you must be prepared for a country without culture or the weight of history and with little by the way of civilization. But one can live there; it is relatively easy to make enough for daily needs. A satisfactory living can be quickly established, and it is a good environment to set up a new Montana. The only things you’ll need are to maintain your good health, learn a bit of Spanish, and a dose of optimism…
At the end of February 1949, Věra gave birth to their first daughter, Susana, in Zurich. Hans, Míla, and Michal crossed the Atlantic by boat and were the first to arrive in Caracas. Lotar and Věra waited a few weeks, until their newborn was strong enough to travel, and then flew. To help them settle, their uncle Richard moved to Venezuela as well. Many Europeans like them arrived as refugees in Venezuela after the war.
The brothers threw themselves into their new adventure. They took Spanish lessons. With the help of a loan from Richard, they bought a house in the Chapellín neighborhood, where both families lived together initially, near other newly arrived European immigrants. They made ends meet with odd jobs and set about getting back into business. To begin with, they used the garage to mix paints and lacquers to sell. Then, when their finances allowed, they managed to hire the premises for their first company, which they named Pinturas Montana in honor of the Prague factory that their father and Richard had started in 1923. It was a team effort. The brothers operated the business and hired a handful of fellow Czechs and Europeans who had also settled in Caracas. Věra took care of everyone, and Míla designed and hand-painted the labels.