I continue to work in the family business, albeit with some limitations, so our income is taken care of. Living is really only a question of strong nerves. I do not know in which conditions you will receive my letter. After all, in the insanity of the Europe in which we live, anything is possible.
It is also very hot here. We leave every afternoon for Libčice, where we recover soon but only to be able, the next day, to face all the unpleasantness and attacks upon ourselves. So far, this is bearable and you do not need to worry. Nevertheless, it is interesting how different people deal with their fates in very different ways. The carefree type seem to fare the best but, unfortunately, the Neumanns are not of that disposition.
Yours,
Otto
Dear Victor and boys,
You cannot imagine how often, in the past days, we have wondered if there would be a letter from you. I have wanted to write before, but I have not been in the mood for it. Please don’t think it is out of laziness.
Today, your letter finally arrived and we are writing back immediately. First of all, thanks for your efforts. One day, I hope I have an occasion to reciprocate. Also, thanks for the holiday postcard, the effect of which you cannot imagine: your freedom makes me envious! It just seems incredible, for instance, that one can travel freely to the seaside without having to take into account the religion of one’s grandparents!
It seems there is going to be a war. Staying here, under the current conditions, unless things were to change, will be impossible for Jews. So far, we all have something to make a living from… we are therefore lucky and can wait.
Next Monday, I will move with my whole family into a one-room apartment where we will wait for things to come. I am not sure whether our boy will be able to attend school but will find out in the next days. I thought you would not be familiar with the definition for “Aryan,” but I see from your letter that the word is even known to you. That is something, isn’t it? It’s the kind of world we live in.
With war in the air, sadly all is irrelevant. We are going to have to wait and see what the future brings. I can only say that I could not consider waiting somewhere abroad for my turn to emigrate; I need to earn something. Whereas, for the young men it is different, I have a family to support. One’s love for family is all-encompassing… how would I feel if I could not feed my own boy? My son is a beautiful six-year-old boy and I would do anything to keep him safe and fed until he is at least older or able to earn a living on his own. Still I remain optimistic and hope that all turns out well for us.
You are correct when you say that, so far, we have somehow managed and hence we will continue to do so. So far, and I hope this remains true for the future, we have not lost our nerve. We have been living quietly and have been lucky. I hope this luck holds.
I wanted to let you know that the newly married Lotík and his young bride, Zdenka, are very happy, they have a really beautiful life together. She is very kind, sweet, clever and beautiful. It’s a joy to watch them together! They are only, like all of us, longing for a little peace. I do not know when, or if at all, it will be possible to write to you again. Just know that we will not give up easily and that I hope that we all meet joyfully in the New World.
Victor, stay healthy and well along with your sons.
Goodbye for now,
Oskar
As it became apparent that migrating to America would prove difficult, Richard and Victor traveled to Cuba numerous times in 1939 and 1940 in a futile attempt to organize visas for the family to escape Europe via the Caribbean. Their efforts are still visible today. A file stored in the Czech Ministry of Exterior Affairs discloses that the consulates of the Czechoslovak government in exile in both America and Cuba requested information about the Neumann brothers from Prague.
Every week that passed brought more laws against the Jews. As I read them now, I am struck by how petty and arbitrary some of them were. As one apparently ridiculous order was added to the last, the process of separation and dehumanization emerges. In dizzying increments, the rules become devastating in their absurdity, in their horror.
In May 1939, Jews were banned from holding gun licenses; in June, Jewish pupils were expelled from German schools; and by July, there were laws stating that Jews were banned from the judiciary, from being lawyers, teachers, or journalists. In that same month, a decree was passed that non-Aryans must register their belongings: their houses, their cars, their bank accounts, their gold, their jewels, and their art. In July, laws were passed restricting Jews to restaurants with separate Jewish areas. In the coming weeks, they were excluded from swimming pools. They were not to enter parks, cinemas, or theaters. They were not allowed to travel without a permit. They had to surrender their driver’s licenses—and, eventually, their cars and bicycles. Their radios. Their cameras. Their stamp collections. Their sewing machines. Their umbrellas. Their pets.
The family was not just affected by professional and logistical restrictions created by the laws. The consequences went far beyond the multitude of everyday activities that they specifically forbade. The laws emboldened those with a racist agenda, who were now organized into groups like the Czech fascist association, Vlajka. Individuals too were now empowered to voice their hatred and to act, unpunished, on their prejudices. Racism and violence were being normalized. Every day of May and June 1939 saw the burning of a synagogue in the Czech Protectorate. The laws had another, subtler effect. They generated an enormous amount of paperwork and bureaucracy that increasingly wearied the thousands affected and served further to alienate and differentiate.
The restriction on Jews in schools impacted the Neumanns’ younger cousins on both sides of the family. Věra Haasová, Ella’s niece, was eight years old in 1939. Věra was the daughter of Ella’s brother, Hugo, and his wife, Marta Stadler. Věra and her parents lived in Roudnice, above a shop owned by Marta’s father. They hosted Haas family reunions and usually visited Libčice in the summer to spend time with the Neumanns.
An only child, Věra had attended a German school, and now she, like the other Jewish children in the town, was banned from attending classes. The Czech schools would not accept Jewish children, so Marta’s parents put some wooden chairs and tables in a few unused rooms at the back of their shop and created a clandestine place for the children to learn. Marta’s father, who had retired, taught math, science, and German, while others volunteered to teach geography, poetry, and the humanities.
At the beginning, the children were taken outside to do sports, play, cycle, and have picnics, but by 1941, laws had forced them to stay indoors. Nonetheless, the school seems to have been a refuge for the children. In a picture taken in the summer of 1941 that I found seventy-five years later, all the girls hold hands as they beam at the camera. Věra is the tallest, wearing a chunky necklace. Mr. Stadler, Věra’s grandfather, stands by the doorway in the back with a serious expression. The tiny school likely preserved a little peace of mind for these children, providing a haven of normalcy until 1942, when the Roudnice Jews were deported.
Children at the clandestine school behind the Stadler shop in Roudnice, 1941
We know all of this today because one of the pupils in the clandestine school later gave an account that can be found in the archives of the Jewish Museum in Prague. She donated notebooks and other pictures of the pupils. One of them shows children around a table covered with books and pens. In another, boys and girls are sprawling on picnic rugs in the grass. Bicycles lean against trees, and a guitar lies on a blanket at one side of the picture. Everyone seems relaxed. There is nothing that could lead the viewer to think that these photographs were taken during a war, during a persecution.
The woman who gave the account and donated all the documentation is named Alena Borská. Just like my cousin Věra, she was born in 1931. Alena is now eighty-eight years old and lives in Roudnice still. She does not use a mobile telephone or the Internet. Alena can be seen in the photograph. Dressed in white, she smiles broadly as she stands to the ri
ght of Věra.
She speaks only Czech, which, sadly, I do not, so I contacted her by letter with the help of my Czech researcher friend. I asked whether she had any recollection at all of Věra. She answered thus:
I have been hoping for 70 years that someone would come and ask me about Věra. She was my best friend. We were just girls, and often laughed together.
She enclosed one more photograph for me, now crumpled and scratched, that she had kept close since it was taken in the autumn of 1938.
Věra Haasová and Alena Borská both aged seven, 1938
The picture shows Věra and Alena just before the war. Two chubby-cheeked children in matching coats among leafless trees. The photographer captures Alena smiling broadly, while Věra seems in a more somber frame of mind.
Hans was able to continue with his studies, as Jews in technical schools were not yet affected by the prohibitions. The only evidence I can find that the invasion sobered his personality is an improvement in his grades during 1939. I am told that he continued to spend his days with Zdeněk and his friends at the college. After school, they would cross the road to U Fleků, where Zdeněk’s mother would welcome them with a big hug, usher them to a corner table by the kitchen, and sneak them a couple of plates of the dish of the day. She did this for as long as she could, despite the ban that had been in place since August 1939 on Jews being in restaurants. By September 1939, Jews had a curfew of eight p.m., so Hans was forced to cut short his evenings with friends.
By October 1939, Otto and Hans had to stop living in the apartment near the factory. Since the German invasion, Ella had chosen to stay in the country house in Libčice and had seldom returned to the capital. She maintained that life was easier there, and this felt even truer now that war had been declared. There was more space and also, it seemed, fewer threats. When it was announced that Jewish families were not allowed to have more than one abode, the Neumanns declared Libčice to be their home. Otto and Hans were initially obliged to obtain permits to drive into Prague. When they were then forced to surrender their driver’s licenses, they needed permits to travel by train and tram.
As a “mixed marriage” couple, Lotar and Zdenka were initially registered to live in Prague at the apartment by the factory. The members of the family who still worked at Montana met to have lunch together as often as they could. Zdenka’s aunt had a large farm, and its produce, as well as her newly acquired friends in the black market, meant there was always plenty to eat.
By November 1939, there were so many prohibitions in effect that a journal cataloging the new rules was published each week to ensure compliance. By then the Germans had closed all Czech universities, so even Zdenka had to stop her legal studies. As Jews had been banned from working in most professions, many were now enrolled in programs to retrain as manual laborers. By February 1940, Jews were compelled to surrender all stocks, bonds, jewelry, and precious metals. They were allowed to keep only wedding rings and gold teeth.
In March 1940, the Judenrat, or Jewish Council of Elders of Prague, was established. It was one of a number of versions across Europe of Nazi-imposed Jewish “headships.” Since the Middle Ages, Jewish communities around Europe had run self-governing municipal bodies, often associated with specific synagogues and ghettos, which kept birth, marriage, and death records and carried out various administrative and charitable tasks. Now all Jews, as defined by the Nazi racial laws regardless of whether they practiced or not, were forced to enroll and pay membership fees to such Councils. Each one gathered and stored information on all Jewish people in their region. The Prague Council was also created as an umbrella body to manage smaller regional Councils across the Protectorate. Those in charge were compelled to oversee, organize, and enforce the implementation of all decrees affecting Jews. All these bodies in the occupied territories were headed and staffed by influential Jews, usually rabbis or leaders within their communities, and operated under the direct Nazi command. They had no authority of their own. The leaders were called elders.
The initial belief was that it was all part of a structure set up to coordinate the emigration of Jews from the Protectorate and other occupied areas. The Neumanns had a good friend who worked in the Council in Prague. Štēpán Engel, nicknamed Pišta, was the son of a friend of Otto and Ella’s. He was a few years older than Lotar and Hans, but they had known him since they were young. He also had become part of Lotar and Zdenka’s group of friends. In 1940 Pišta was appointed as chief secretary to the elders. While he had little, if any, influence in decision making, Pišta acted as a gatekeeper of sorts and had access to information in advance of its general release. He passed on some of this information to the Neumanns, which allowed them a little more time to prepare. Time became crucial, and advance knowledge would eventually prove invaluable.
As 1939 became 1940, rumors abounded that property owned by people married to Jews was to be confiscated. This meant that Zdenka would lose all her buildings and the revenue from her tenants. Everyone around Lotar and Zdenka told them to divorce. They vehemently protested, but even Pišta confirmed their fears. Initially, they refused. But when Zdenka’s grandmother died, leaving more properties to her, the need for this precaution became more acute. Both their families implored Lotar and his beloved wife to sign the divorce papers. The Neumanns expected the Montana factory to be taken over any day. It was only a piece of paper; it would preserve the ownership of the properties, and it was the only way to guarantee an income for them all.
So only nine months after their marriage in February 1940, still promising to keep their vows, Lotar and Zdenka reluctantly signed their petition to divorce. All accounts indicate that they were devastated. And yet they were pragmatic and understood that they were giving up a symbol and not their love. Zdenka’s grandmother’s advice, now that she was gone, resonated even more in Zdenka’s mind: these were not times to be led by one’s heart; it was one’s head that was crucial.
The divorce was granted immediately, and Lotar was ordered to return to live in Libčice. Nonetheless, after a few months of quiet encounters at Montana, they decided to defy the prohibitions, risk punishment, and live together in one of the buildings owned by Zdenka’s family. For the sake of the neighbors, they posed as brother and sister. Only the caretaker, who had known Zdenka since she was a girl and had helped her prepare the apartment, knew the truth. She had watched Zdenka grow up and was loyal to the family who employed her. She kept their secret.
In 1940, as the Neumanns had expected, Montana was taken over by a Reich-appointed “treuhänder,” or trustee, who held legal ownership of the company. He was a man called Karl Becker from Berlin. Becker tyrannized Lotar and Otto as the head of what had been the family business for seventeen years. A letter from Becker of July 1941, written on the company stationery, reprimanded Lotar and stated that if he did not show up for work, Becker would have the Gestapo summon him to face the consequences. Otto and Lotar had no choice but to quietly accept whatever treatment they received.
Letter to Lotar on the family company’s letterhead threatening to report him to the Gestapo
In Libčice, Ella worked hard to maintain normalcy in what was clearly no longer a normal world. Her family, in-laws, and friends had lost employment, belongings, homes. They were scattered and separated by travel restrictions. Her youngest nephews and nieces were attending a clandestine school. Her eldest son had been made to divorce his beloved wife and was risking his life by defying various prohibitions. Somehow the only member of the family who seemed to lead a relatively unscathed life was her youngest son, Hans.
In May 1940, Ella wrote to Richard, who had started his new life in America. She shared the news that, despite all that was happening, This week, Handa graduated from the Chemical Technical School. Her letter ends: Here in Libčice the trees have blooms so beautiful that it almost makes the events around us seem unimportant.
CHAPTER 5 Drowned Lights
The pages of Lotar’s album are carefully tiled with pictures of all
sizes. Some are clear, posed portraits of my family in military uniform, elegant clothes, or costumes taken in a studio, the name of which is embossed on the thick handsome paper. These stand proud in the collection and mark milestones like births, marriages, or comings of age, but the majority of the pictures are small and casual. They tend to be of groups of people and candidly capture everyday life.
One of the larger photographs stands out. It is not a formal photograph, and yet it sits framed by a white margin on stark black paper. It has a page to itself. It is a portrait of Hans in his late teens. He wears a pin-striped collared shirt and a sweater. He is bespectacled, and his hair is neatly parted and brushed to one side. He is holding a Kodak 8mm film camera, many of which were produced in the 1930s for the Czech market. The photograph must have been taken in 1939 or 1940; he seems too grown-up for it to have been taken earlier, and by the end of 1941, Jews had been forced to turn in photographic equipment. I do not know if the Neumanns complied with this law, but I know enough about them now to be sure they would not have taken the risk of creating evidence against themselves. In the portrait, Hans appears to be filming, looking down, his face partially hidden by the device. I recognize his hands, his long fingers, his grasp. His way of holding things frequently struck others as awkward. He was double-jointed, so it was perfectly natural to him. I know this because I am also double-jointed. My three children, like Hans and me, have joints that bend more markedly. We hold things oddly too. Activities like riding a bicycle, catching a ball, cradling a pencil, and arranging your body in a chair, or your thoughts in a narrative, pose an additional challenge. I never would have noticed, but the teachers at my children’s elementary school pointed it out and suggested exercises to improve their motor skills. So now I know that Hans’s odd way of holding objects, and probably his propensity to fall off a bicycle, is part of an inherited condition, related to double-jointedness, called dyspraxia. I do not think Hans ever noticed that there was anything awkward in the way he held things.
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