W–050 · 1 October 1940 · Trenton, New Jersey, United States
The Oath in Trenton
On 1 October 1940, Albert Einstein raised his right hand in a Trenton courtroom. His stepdaughter Margot and secretary Helen Dukas took the oath beside him; other prospective US citizens stood behind them. The surviving photograph places the three in the front row.
1. Einstein, Margot and Dukas
Provenance and sources for frame 1
File and rights
Public 3819 × 3037 JPEG reproduction of an archival black-and-white photograph via the Center for Jewish History viewer; the negative and photographer are unidentified. The Leo Baeck Institute welcomes fair use with credit; its reproduction policy applies to other uses.
Einstein was abroad when the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933. He decided not to return and began work that autumn at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Margot and Dukas lived with him and his wife Elsa; after Elsa died in 1936, they remained in the house on Mercer Street.
Einstein filed his declaration of intention to become a US citizen in January 1936. In his petition, signed in June 1940, he gave his Princeton address and his occupation as professor of theoretical physics. More than four years passed between that first filing and the oath. He also retained the Swiss citizenship he had acquired long before moving to the United States.
War was already underway in Europe when he took the oath in October 1940. Einstein continued his work in Princeton and helped refugees from Nazi Germany reach the United States. Dukas remained his secretary until his death in 1955. After his death, she worked to preserve his archive, collecting and organising his papers. These documents became part of the Albert Einstein Archives in Jerusalem.