[CTRL] Fw: SN481:MILEVA MARIC EINSTEIN - Part II

[Mrs. Jela Jovanovic, Secretary General]

-----Original Message----- Date: Thursday, February 17, 2000 6:55 AM Subject: SN481:MILEVA MARIC EINSTEIN - Part II The Search for Lieserl  Michele Zackheim’s book Einstein’s. Daughter: The Search for Lieserl is an excellent book which can be read on several levels: a mystery describing the search for the first child of Albert Einstein and Mileva Maric Einstein; as a biography of Mileva Maric; as the story of her family and how her relatives remember her; as a depiction of life in Vojvodina and Serbia both at the beginning and the end of the 20th century. Zackheim realized that in order to find the child, she would have to know Mileva and in order to know her she would have to understand the “cultural heart of Serbia”. The book is based on more than one hundred interviews and vast research through Serbian archives, history and literature so that Zackheim could tell the story “iz prve ruke”. It is also the story of descendants, of Mileva’s relatives today - second cousin Dragisa Maric, first cousin Ljubica Maric, second cousin Jovan Ruzic, first cousin Sofija Galic Golubovic - and descendants of Mileva’s best friends - Helene Savic’s grandson Dr. Milan Popovic and Milana Bota Stefanovic’s grandchild Ivana Stefanovic. Previously unknown letters and photographs were shown to Zackheim so she could tell Maric’s story. Maric’s biographer was a Serbian mathematician and physicist, Desanka Djuric-Trbuhovic, whose U Senci Alberta Ajnstajna was first published in 1969 and has since been published in German and translated into English. This is the most complete and definitive biography written about Maric and is the primary source about her life consulted by writers and researchers. Zackheim consulted her son, Professor Ljubomir Trbuhovic, in the writing of her book. Einstein’s Daughter is a book of memories which brings the Maric era to new light. There is a description of her maternal great-grandfather Ruzic who “ordered two enormous brass bells from ‘Vienna for Titel’s newly built church. The bells traveled by train through Central Europe, connecting in Budapest, then passing through the bountiful plains that surrounded Novi Sad and on to Kac, Budisava, Sajkas, Vilovo, Lok, finally stopping at Titel. Since the church was three kilometres from the train depot, a team of six oxen, their horns adorned with apples, and a wagon were brought from Ruzic’s ranch. The bells were loaded onto the wagon in silence. Ruzic walked alongside as the small procession commenced its journey to the church. People from the village and countryside lined the dirt road and tossed brightly colored pieces of fabric at them. Ruzic and the oxen were covered in color. At the church, the priest gave a blagoslov, a blessing, and sprinkled the bells with holy water. The bells were then hoisted up into the tower with ropes and installed by local carpenters. In two hours, they rang out over the village. …During his lifetime Ruzic never acknowledged his gift. Bragging was considered as impolite as speaking about family disgraces”. There are also memories of Albert Einstein in Novi Sad while visiting the Maric’s on Kisacka Street. He liked to spend time at the Queen Elizabeth Cafe which formed part of the hotel owned by Lazar Dundjerski one of the wealthiest men in Vojvodina. Sitting on the back patio, Einstein would read and visit. “Even today Novi Sad residents tell stories about Albert’s loquacity and laughter. It was on this patio that Albert was remembered to have said he was ‘not against moderate alcohol consumption’. “‘Voila’, he exclaimed, ‘the Serb drinks from birth until death. When he is born, as he matures, when he travels, when he gets married, when he gets buried - and yet Serbs are a nation of geniuses. That is how I perceive them, based on my wife”’. Zackheim also describes the church where the Einstein sons were christened. “Nikolajevska, St. Nicholas, the oldest church in Novi Sad, was constructed in the baroque style around 1730. Inside, the walls are decorated with gold filigree that catches the light coming through the stained glass windows and from the hundreds of flickering candles. The patriarch of the church, Father Teodor Milic, was a famous singer, preacher, political radical, and a personal friend of Milos Maric’s (Mileva’s father)”. The author also touches on the Jews in Vojvodina. “Jews were a distinct minority in the villages of Vojvodina. ...Although an unspoken separation existed, anti-Semitism was not prevalent among the Serbs. Wherever there was a Catholic majority, especially in German and Hungarian neighborhoods, there were incidents of anti-Semitism, but the Orthodox Church was tolerant and not openly prejudiced against Jews”. Zackheim must be commended for the vast amount of research she did in the archives of Vojvodina and Serbia. It is heartbreaking to read that "great chunks of the past have been destroyed in the chaos of war”. She tells the tale of how even today “the German government has in its museums and archives church icons and artifacts from Vojvodina which they refuse to return”. In addition, thirty train cars of records were stored in the salt mines of Czechoslovakia where “the Germans assembled a team of sixty scientists to review the material in an attempt to prove that the Kingdom of Serbia had been the aggressor that had instigated the First World War”. The records in Vojvodina and Serbia “lived under many regimes” and she was told how “at the end of the Second World War, the Communists recycled many of our old records into new paper”. During her research she con-suited thirty-two archives in Vojvodina, Serbia, Hungary and Austria. It is a blessing that she did her research when she did - traveling three times to Serbia - twice while the country was at war for as she writes, “Today, in 1999, the most recent war has left the country in ruins. Many of the archives, government record offices, schools, hospitals and graveyards, where I did much of my research, have been damaged or destroyed”. Einstein’s Daughter is an excellent and enjoyable book. In fact, it is “unputdownable” - it will keep you reading through the night.  Bibliography  Books Djuric-Trbuhovic, Desanka. U Senci Alberta Ajnstajna. Krusevac: Bagdala, 1969. Forbes, Malcolm. What Happened to Their Kids! Children of the Rich and Famous, Children of Albert Einstein. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990. Gabor, Andrea. Einstein’s Wife: Work and Marriage in the Lives of Five Great Twentieth Century Women. New York: Viking Press, 1995. Highfield, Roger and Carter, Paul. The Private Lives of Albert Einstein. London: Faber & Faber, 1993. Renn, Jurgen and Schulman, Robert, eds. Albert Einstein/ Mileva Maric: The Love Letters. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1992. Zackheim, Michele. Einstein’s Daughter: The Search for Lieseri. New York: Riverhead (Penguin Putnam), 1999.   Articles “Albert Einstein - Person of the Century”, TIME, December31, 1999. Chamberlain, Lesley, “A Daughter of Science”, Times Literar’y Supplement, February 13, 1998. “Did Einstein’s Wife Aid in Theories?”, New York Times; March 27, 1990. Garfield, Simon L. “First Wife’s Role in Einstein Work Debated”, Christian Science Monitor, February 27, 1990. Goodman, Ellen, “Relatives and Relativity: There Were Two Einsteins”, International Herald Tribune, March 16, 1990. Dennis Overbye, “Einstein in Love”, TIME, April30, 1990. Robinson, Paul A. Jr. “Early Einstein: The Young Physicist’s Papers”, Christian Science Monitor, October 11, 1987. Sullivan, Walter, “Einstein Letters Tell of Anguished Love Affair”, New York Times, May 3, 1987.   Further Reading Bukumirovic, Dragana Mileva Maric Ajnstajn. Biblioteka Fatalne Srpkinje, Knjiga Broj 2. Beograd: Narodna Knjiga 1998. Einstein, Elizabeth Roboz. Hans Albert Einstein: Reminiscences of His Life and Our Life Together. Iowa Institute of Hydraulic Research, University of Iowa, 1991. (AppendixAcontains Mileva Maric’s biography by Djordje Krstic.) McGrail, Anna. Mrs. Einstein, a novel. New York: Doubleday, 1998. Ognjenovic, Vida. Mileva Ajnstajn, Drama u Dva Dela. Beograd: Stubovi Kulture, 1998. Overbye, Dennis. Einstein in Love, A Scientific Romance. Boston: Little Brown, 1999.