A N I N T E RV I E W 6 2 3
onmogelijk gemaakt. Nog lang nadat van binnen het geluid van applaus was doorgedron-
gen, stonden er nog drommen menschen buiten te wachten op de gelegenheid naar binnen
te sluipen, zelfs trachtten groepjes jongelieden de aangrenzende tuinen en hoven te bestor-
men om zich zoodoende een weg te verschaffen. Niet onvermakelijk was het, dat we dien
avond een concierge van een dier huizen aantroffen, terwijl hij zijn poort krampachtig be-
waakte, het zweet parelend op zijn gezicht. We konden niet uitmaken of deze uitputting li-
chamelijke dan wel geestelijke uitputting was. Men had hem n.l. trachten om te koopen:
twintig, vijftig, ja honderd Mark had men hem aangeboden als hij zijn poort opende. Toen
prof. Einstein dat hoorde, lichtte zijn gezicht op: „Werkelijk? is dàt mogelijk? Zijn er dan
heusch nog onomkoopbare Duitschers? Dien knaap moeten we in het oog houden—moge-
lijk zullen we hem dan eens in het museum opstellen, als laatste van het geslacht der onom-
koopbare Duitschers!“
2. An Interview with Prof. Albert Einstein
It has been communicated to us from Berlin, d.d. June 29:
Professor Einstein has returned from his little trip to America and England! A tiring trip
it has surely been, but it hasn’t made the great man any less cheerful. When we asked him
whether in the end he had been in the Netherlands as well, he exclaimed in apparent terror:
“Good gracious, I was exhausted from minding my p’s and q’s as it was! No, it was enough
already. For someone emerging from a quiet study and accustomed to a well-regulated life,
America is sufficiently noisy, blustery and tiring anyway, but in my particular case, going
more or less to act as the light and magic show in the circus, it was really quite bad. Of
course I did give a few scholarly lectures, did take advantage of meetings with American
colleagues, but that is not what I set out for. I really went on behalf of the Jewish cause. Yes,
I have placed my name and indeed my self in the service of the Zionist movement to make
propaganda for Palestine, and the true purpose of the American trip was to collect money
for a fund to establish a university in Jerusalem. Whether I liked that job as such? No, not
particularly: I abhor speaking to large crowds, and . . . that I couldn’t avoid. But the entire
trip was most interesting and uncommonly refreshing. At times I felt somewhat at sea,
thinking for instance of the arrival in New York [and here Professor Einstein roared with
laughter] when we were hoisted from the big boat into a little one, which was literally
crammed with journalists, who immediately and terrifyingly set upon me, unremittingly,
intermittently, and excitedly throwing questions at me that weren’t understood by anyone
and that were not in the least intelligible to me.
“Fortunately I was accompanied by an extraordinarily competent secretary, who trans-
lated for me only what was essential. And then the dense crowd of people on the quay . . .
Jews, Jews, nothing but Jews. It was the first time in my life that I saw Jews en masse—I,
who in the course of my life have met so many Jews, and who have had warm feelings
toward so many Jews, and that was certainly a great emotion. That, by the way, is the
remarkable thing about the States—huge crowds form instantly: for an idea, for an election,