Albert Einstein | Autograph letter to the psychiatrist Dr. Dumeng Bezzola, about his stepdaughter Ilse, 25 February 1928

Albert Einstein

Autograph letter signed ("A. Einstein") to the psychiatrist Dr. Dumeng Bezzola, about his stepdaughter Ilse

thanking him profusely for the care he has taken over Ilse's treatment, observing that he has achieved what they had hardly thought possible, given that her condition had for so long been on the decline, asking him not be angry that they went on a trip in the Engadin, despite recommendations to the contrary, for it was far from their intention to go against medical advice, noting that his decision was based on the fact that he and his wife were also much in need of a break and that he had received an invitation from friends in Zuoz; Einstein closes the letter humorously by stating that he will see the evidence with his own eyes when he calls by the following day with his wife

...Es ist mir Bedürfnis, Ihnen zu sagen, wie sehr ich darüber erfreut bin, dass Sie sich so hingebend mit unserer Ilse befassen. Sie haben auch mit ihr fertig gebracht, was wir kaum für möglich gehalten hätten, nachdem es so lange Zeit hindurch immer nur langsam abwärts gegangen war...

1 page, 8vo (21 x 14.4cm), docketed by the recipient, no place, date-stamped 25 February 1928, light browning along vertical fold

While Einstein and Elsa his second wife (who was also his first cousin) had no children of their own, the great physicist raised the two daughters, Ilse and Margot, from his wife's first marriage, as his own. At the time of writing Ilse was being treated by Dr. Dumeng Bezzola (1868-1936) at a private clinic for nervous disorders in Celerina, in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. Ilse had earlier briefly worked for Einstein as his secretary at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, and before he finally married Elsa, in 1919, it seems that Einstein had also contemplated marriage with Ilse. Ilse died in 1934 from tuberculosis, shortly after the Einsteins had emigrated to the United States. 

LITERATURE:

Not in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, vol.16 (2021)