The History of the Albert Einstein Archives

Albert Einstein was not the sort of person to retain every piece of paper that passed through his hands. He made no systematic attempt to preserve his papers prior to 1919. As a result of his dramatic rise to fame in November 1919, his correspondence increased vastly and he employed his step-daughter, Ilse, as his first secretarial assistant. She achieved the first semblance of well-ordered files. In April 1928, Helen Dukas came to work for Einstein and began to preserve his papers more systematically. However, not even then were copies of all outgoing correspondence kept. Shortly after the Nazis' rise to power in 1933, Einstein's papers were rescued from Berlin by Einstein's son-in-law, Rudolf Kayser, with the help of the French Embassy. The material was brought to Einstein's new home in Princeton and kept there until well after his death. With a few exceptions, the material left at Einstein's summer house in Caputh outside Berlin was destroyed in order to prevent it falling into the hands of the Nazi authorities. Einstein's Will of 1950 appointed his secretary, Helen Dukas, and his close associate, Dr. Otto Nathan, as trustees of his estate. Following Einstein's death in 1955, Dukas and Nathan devoted themselves tirelessly for a quarter of a century to organizing the papers and acquiring additional material. As a result of their efforts, the Archives grew threefold. In the 1960's, Helen Dukas and Prof. Gerald Holton of Harvard University reorganized the material, thereby rendering it accessible to scholars and preparing it for eventual publication in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, a joint project of The Hebrew University and Princeton University Press. To facilitate editorial work, the papers were transferred from Einstein's home to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 1982, the Einstein Estate transferred Einstein's personal papers to the Jewish National & University Library in Jerusalem. President Avraham Harman of The Hebrew University and Prof. Milton Handler of the American Friends of The Hebrew University played a crucial role in securing the transfer of the material to Jerusalem. In subsequent years, additional material was dispatched from Einstein's Princeton residence, namely his personal collections of reprints, photographs, medals, and diplomas as well as his private library. In 1988, the Bern Dibner Curatorship for the running of the Albert Einstein Archives was established by the Dibner Fund of Connecticut, USA.
The Archives' first curator was Ze'ev Rosenkranz (1989-2003). His successor Dr. Roni Grosz heads the Archives since 2004. In January 2008, the Archives became part of the Hebrew University's Library Authority, and, in July 2008, moved to new premises in the Levi building on the Hebrew University's Edmond J. Safra campus, allowing for enhanced services to the public.