A 1939 letter by Albert Einstein on rescuing Jewish refugees from the clutches of the Nazis is being auctioned this week in Los Angeles.
The typed letter, which is dated June 10, 1939—less than three months before the outbreak of World War Two—on Einstein’s personal blind-embossed letterhead from Princeton, New Jersey, is addressed to Miss Sadye Klein of the Veteran Relief Division, who worked on behalf of the refugees at the Department of Welfare in New York.
“The power of resistance which has enabled the Jewish people to survive for thousands of years has been based to a large extent on traditions of mutual helpfulness,” the letter reads. “In these years of affliction our readiness to help one another is being put to an especially severe test. May we stand this test as well as did our fathers before us.”
The internationally renowned German-born physicist, best known for developing the theory of relativity, had taken up a position in 1933 as a resident scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, noted for having become a refuge for Jewish scientists fleeing Nazi Germany. At the time, most American Ivy League universities, including Harvard, Yale and Princeton, had minimal or no Jewish faculty or students, as a result of their Jewish quotas.
“We have no other means of self-defense than our solidarity and our knowledge that the cause for which we are suffering is a momentous and sacred cause,” the letter continues.
“It must be a source of deep gratification to you to be making so important a contribution toward rescuing our persecuted fellow-Jews from their calamitous peril and leading them toward a better future,” the letter concludes, followed by Einstein’s signature.
The 85-year-old letter, along with the original June 12, 1939 postmarked envelope, will be auctioned Thursday by Nate D. Sanders Auctions, with a minimum bid listed at $20,000. A similar Einstein letter was auctioned five years ago for nearly $135,000.