ALS in German, signed “A. Einstein,” one page both sides, 5 x 3, January 1951. Handwritten letter to the "Ehrmanns," his personal physician, Dr. Rudolph Ehrmann, and his wife Käte Pollack Ehrmann. In 1939, Einstein intervened to save Dr. Ehrmann from Nazi persecution by securing the distinguished 60-year-old gastroenterologist a position at NYU’s Bellevue Medical Center. With warmth and friendship, Einstein thanks the Ehrmanns for their gift and then commiserates with Frau Erhmann on their moving to a new home.
In full (translated): "Both touched and abashed I thank you for the precious gifts with which you honored me and my woman folk. Your remark, dear Mrs. Ehrmann, filled me with consternation, because it sounded like, a) your entry into the home has not been confirmed, and b) because it tells me that you look toward this undertaking with fear rather than with a feeling of liberation. I am firmly convinced that you will see things differently, and better, once the time has come. I can even imagine that having more leisure there, you will immortalize in a diary all the comical aspects that co-existence with totally different contemporaries lays bare." In fine condition.
Albert Einstein's affiliation with Rudolph Ehrmann is discussed in Gerald Weissman's article, 'How a Letter from Einstein Saved a Scientist from Nazi Germany.' Outlining the immigrant doctor's productive career in America, Weissman observes: 'By the time war had begun, Ehrmann was on his way to the United States. By October, he had taken his place as a clinical professor of medicine (his specialty, gastroenterology) at the NYU School of Medicine and as an attending physician at Bellevue Hospital. He went on to establish a clinical practice based at Beth Israel Hospital and published a half a dozen articles in English before his retirement.' The men remained in close contact. In 1955, when Einstein was terminally ill, Ehrmann rushed down to Princeton to be by his old friend’s side.
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