452 THE QUANTUM THEORYvectors to the Dirac equation and to generalize the formalism to general relativity.
Their studies of semivector pairs led them to believe that for 'the first time ... an
explanation has been given for the existence of two electric elementary particles
of different mass, with charges that are [equal and] opposite' [E21], a conclusion
that did not survive.*
On September 9 Einstein left the Continent for good. Le Goq was too close to
the German border for his safety. Again he went to England, where he spent a
few quiet weeks in the country. On October 3 he addressed a mass meeting in
London, chaired by Rutherford, which was designed to draw attention to the need
for aid to scholars in exile [N3]. Then it was time to go. Use and Margot returned
to Paris. Elsa, Helen Dukas, and Walther Mayer** boarded the Westmoreland
in Antwerp. On October 7 Einstein joined them in Southampton. Carrying visi-
tors' visas, the four of them set out for a new life.
On October 17 they arrived in New York and were met at quarantine by Edgar
Bamberger and Herbert Maass, trustees of the Institute, who handed Einstein a
letter from Flexner, the Institute's first director. The letter read in part: 'There is
no doubt whatsoever that there are organized bands of irresponsible Nazis in this
country. I have conferred with the local authorities. .. and the national govern-
ment in Washington, and they have all given me the advice. .. that your safety
in America depends upon silence and refraining from attendance at public func-
tions. ... You and your wife will be thoroughly welcome at Princeton, but in the
long run your safety will depend on your discretion' [F3]. The party was taken
by special tug from quarantine to the Battery. From there, they were driven
directly to Princeton, where rooms at the Peacock Inn were waiting for them. A
few days later, the Einsteins and Helen Dukas moved to a rented house at 2
Library Place. There they stayed until 1935, when Einstein bought the house at
112 Mercer Street from Mary Marden, paying for it in cash. In the autumn of
that year, they moved in. It was to be Einstein's last home. In 1939 Mussolini's
racial laws forced Einstein's sister, Maja Winteler, to leave the small estate outside
Florence which Einstein had bought for her and her husband, Paul. Maja came
to live with her brother in Princeton. Paul moved in with the Michaele Bessos in
Geneva.
Death struck in the early years. Use died in Paris after a painful illness. There-
after Margot joined her family in Princeton. In May 1935 Einstein and his wife
as well as Margot and her husbandf sailed for Bermuda, in order to obtain immi-
grant visas upon reentry. This was Einstein's last trip outside the United States.
Not long thereafter, Elsa became gravely ill. She died on December 20, 1936, of
heart disease."These papers are rather bizarre since the authors were aware of the recent discovery of the positron
[E21].
**One biographer's story [C2] that Mayer had joined Einstein in England is incorrect.
fMargot was briefly married to Dimitri Marianoff.