Maja Einstein

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Maja Einstein died in Princeton on the 25th of June 1951, of pneumonia following a fracture of the upper arm. She had been living in the New Jersey university town for twelve years, though she had never planned to stay. Her husband Paul Winteler had been refused entry to the United States for health reasons and remained with relatives in Geneva. They kept in contact through letters until she died. What brought a German Romanist to this American town is a story shaped by financial ruin and racial persecution. What prevented her from going home was a body that refused to cooperate.

  2

• 2. An Education Across Borders

  ›

  Maja Einstein was born in Munich on the 18th of November 1881. Her parents were Pauline Einstein, née Koch, and Hermann Einstein. Mismanagement of the family's affairs brought financial difficulty and forced a move to Italy. In Milan, Maja attended a German-speaking international school between 1887 and 1894.

  In 1899 she moved to Aarau, where her brother Albert was enrolled at the Kantonsschule. The family of a school professor named Jost Winteler took her in, as they had Albert before her. She studied at the town's teacher's seminar from 1899 to 1902. After her father's death, she earned her teaching patent in 1905.

  Berlin, Bern, and Paris each hosted her studies as she pursued Romance languages and literature. In 1909, the University of Bern awarded her a doctorate. Her dissertation examined the manuscript relationships between two Old French texts, the Chevalier au Cygne and Enfances Godefroy. During those same Aarau years she had come to know Jost Winteler's youngest son Paul. Within a year of her doctorate, they would be married.

  2

• 3. From Lucerne to Florence

  ›

  On the 23rd of March 1910, Maja Einstein married Paul Winteler and immediately lost her work permit as a result. The couple settled in Lucerne-Bramberg. They lived there until Maja's mother Pauline died in 1920. After that, Maja and Paul moved to Italy, acquiring an estate outside Florence. It sat in the district of Colonnata, in the commune of Sesto Fiorentino.

  In 1924, Albert Einstein gave them 7,000 Reichsmarks to help clear debts that were burdening the estate. Unemployment continued to press on the household even after that relief. The political situation in Italy would soon prove a far more urgent problem than any debt.

  2

• 4. Exile in Princeton

  ›

  Benito Mussolini's introduction of anti-Semitic laws in Italy prompted Maja Einstein to leave in February 1939. She joined Albert at his home on Mercer Street in Princeton. The arrangement was meant to be temporary. Maja intended to return home once the Second World War had ended.

  In 1946, a stroke interrupted those plans. She later developed arteriosclerosis and became bedridden. These conditions made return to Europe impossible, even after the war ended. Paul Winteler died in Geneva on the 15th of July 1952, less than a year after her.

  12