Albert grew up in Munich, Germany. His family, secular Jews, were entrepreneurs making electrical equipment. Albert chafed under rote learning and militarized nationalism, so when his family moved to Italy, he renounced his citizenship. He finished school in Switzerland, where he married, took his first job as a patent clerk, played the violin, and began writing scientific papers.
As a scientist, Albert required independent thought and creative expression. This made for a difficult career path. Still, in 1913 he settled in Berlin, accepted citizenship, developed the general theory of relativity, won the Nobel prize, and bought a sailboat for afternoon daydreaming.
His 20 years in Germany coincided with WW1 and later the rise of Hitler. During a 1933 residency in England, he first reported his address in a guestbook as "without.” He was in California when the brownshirts ransacked his cottage. He never returned to Germany.
Albert and his wife began the process to apply for refugee status. During his final 20 years in Princeton, he championed a variety of peace efforts including advocating for Jewish refugees. He warned President Roosevelt about Germany creating an atomic bomb and later about the arms race. At one point he turned down an invitation to become the president of Israel. He admired Gandhi, joined the NAACP, resisted McCarthyism, and both celebrated Israel's independence and advocated for the complete equality of Arab citizens, and continued working and playing the violin until the end of his life.
First in our Famous Refugee series (After reading Einstein, His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson)
