Albert Einstein letter on helping Jewish refugees during WWII up for auction

A letter typed and signed by Albert Einstein during World War II, with moving content regarding helping Jewish refugees, will be auctioned by Nate D. Sanders Auctions on March 25, 2021 in Los Angeles. The starting price will be $10,000.

Written in English in June 1939 on his personal blind-embossed letterhead from Princeton, the Jewish-German physicist addresses William Morris of the famed William Morris Agency, who worked on ''behalf of the refugees during Dedication Week.'

''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," wrote Einstein in the beginning of his letter, stressing that "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," Einstein further added. "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."

"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 Nobel Prize recipient finally concluded.

It is not the first time that Einstein's letters have been auctioned by Nate D. Sanders Auctions. In August 2019, a 1935 letter by Albert Einstein denouncing antisemitism in American academia was auctioned in Los Angeles. The letter was written in German and addressed to Jewish physicist Paul Epstein.

Another two letters penned by Einstein were auctioned on the same occasion. The first is a 1921 letter of recommendation for Epstein. 

In the second document, written in 1939, the scientist praised the Jewish tradition of mutual support.