1 1 0 D O C U M E N T 1 0 0 M A R C H 1 9 2 2 100. From Mileva Einstein-Maric [Zurich, around 21 March 1922][1] Dear Albert, I have a few comments about your last letters to our boys[2] and otherwise also have a few things on my mind that’s why I have to write you these few lines I hope you won’t be cross. Your repeated invitations to the children for the summer vaca- tion heartily please us all, I just have to point out again that I consider that kind of vacation extremely risky for Albert. Right after the vacation he has to take his final exams and should use this vacation thoroughly for studying.[3] Without wanting to criticize Albert, I do have to say that, left to his own devices, he would certainly not work enough and it would be extremely annoying if he did not pass this exam for us considerably more than for others, for you can imagine how longingly I wait for my older boy, at least, to stand on his own two feet. Surely you understand me well. Albert is good and industrious with subjects that interest him, but he is a bit difficult to win over for subjects he doesn’t like and the finals include a variety of the latter type. Wouldn’t it perhaps be possible to arrange something a meeting during the spring break? I would very much prefer this also for another reason. A few days ago I received the news that my father died.[4] My mother,[5] who herself is old and weak and is now all alone, asks me to visit her as soon as possible and help her arrange a few things. During the last few years my parents were living in shocking misery. My sister, who has occasionally been suffering from serious mental disor- der for some years, turned their lives into hell and abused them [6] during the war they had lost an important portion of their wealth and, considering the current cost, were anyway unable to put her in an institution. Only now, with the death notice, did I receive the report that Zora is in an institution.—I write you all this only so that you understand how infinitely heavy my heart is. Not just that I myself am completely alone here and have no one to lean on, but those who were closest to me are themselves deeply unhappy. Sometimes I have to think that, despite every- thing, you would probably be the first to give me a little more personal support in this if only you knew how depressed and sad I am. If traveling conditions there weren’t so difficult, I would really like to take the children with me I could, of course, also accommodate them well here. But if you could arrange to spend this vacation somewhere with them, they would enjoy it at