Albert Einstein
lived through, and was,
in fact, a central
figure, in some
of the most important
moments of the first half
of the 20th century.
You know the world was
in a real state of chaos.
Things were shifting hugely.
Huge plates were shifting.
The big part of our story
is about a Jewish man who is
living in Europe in a time of
extraordinary anti-Semitism
and the rise of fascism.
And a big part of our story is--
is he going to stay in Germany?
Is he going to leave?
And it becomes an
immigration story.
No.
I will not kowtow to police.
And I will not sit by
and wait for fascists
to kill my husband.
He took an awful lot of
persuading to leave Germany.
I want to leave, Albert.
Please!
Had Elsa and his family
have not taken the steps,
he'd have been lost to us.
He would had been exterminated.
On a personal level,
this is a fascinating story
about somebody doing all of that
amazing stuff, which isn't even
at the forefront of this story.
The forefront of this story are
these personal relationships,
and the drama that
he suffered along
the way whilst trying to
achieve these amazing things
for humanity.
He wanted to give these
things to the world,
and interpret things as
his reason for being,
as his reason for existing.
And he faced huge
adversity in doing so.
These tragedies
and relationships
that disintegrated, and
governments that didn't support
him or ostracized
him as a Jew, that
forced him out of the country.
Take an individual who is
struggling, complete underdog.
Come back when you wish
to be taken seriously!
You know, he was brilliant.
But he struggled within the
world of formal academia.
They didn't really know
what to make of him.
He was working in
a patent office
when he was making
his breakthroughs,
because he couldn't even
get a teaching position.
However, it's all heightened
because Albert Einstein was
Jewish at a time
when his religion was
a tremendous liability,
if not a physical threat.
This is what he lived through.
And he faced it.
