Bern and Einstein (6/12)

I had coffee in my PJs and read the “paper” this morning – heaven! My host had a flight to Hamburg and back this morning, so I was alone in the apartment when I woke up. What a delight!  By the time I was showered and dressed, he was back from his flight. The weather looked crummy enough that I carried a raincoat, and went straight to Bern’s history museum, which also has a floor devoted to Albert Einstein, so I could be inside and away from the rain. I decided to start with the Einstein exhibit/museum, which was fascinating! A lot had been donated to the Bern exhibit by Israel – not clear whether it was the government or another museum. The exhibit detailed his life from his birth in Ulm, Germany, to his death in Princeton, New Jersey. The reason it’s in Bern is that Einstein came to Bern to live with another family when his parents moved to Milan after his father’s Munich business failed. He lived here, and did much of his “high school” and higher ed. here and later in Zurich. I won’t recount his whole life, although I really hadn’t known the story beyond a vague recognition that he went to the U.S. to escape the Nazis. It turns out that he had a professorship in Germany toward the end of his time in Europe, but he had become a Swiss citizen while living in Bern, and refused to give up his Swiss citizenship while he was in Germany. (Apparently, Einstein valued the Swiss position of neutrality.)  Even so, Einstein had dual citizenship and traveled for a while on a German diplomatic passport. For that reason, Switzerland refused to take him in when the National Socialists were gaining power.  In fact, the Nazis froze all of his assets; he had no access to funds. He made a trip to the U.S. for work-related reasons, and simply never returned to Europe.  Princeton had offered him a position at the Institute for Advanced Study, and there he stayed.  Apparently, Einstein was quite the ladies’ man, and treated his first wife abominably. (She had been trained as a physicist, as well.) I didn’t realize that he warned Roosevelt about the potential for Germany to develop the bomb. What I saw in the museum implied that Einstein’s letter led to the creation of the Manhattan Project, but I’m not clear whether that was the case.  At any rate, Einstein was viewed as a security risk and for that reason was prohibited from working on the Manhattan Project. It was a fascinating exhibit, providing much social history and details on Einstein’s life, as well as simplified explanations of Einstein’s theories. I really enjoyed learning something about Einstein, and the exhibit was very well done.

After lunch, I realized there was no way I was going to get through the whole museum, so I decided to take in the part of the museum devoted to Bern in the 20^th century. The exhibit detailed people and developments that had taken place in Bern. I was amazed to see the number of writers, scientists, engineers, musicians, architects, and others who had lived in Bern and made a significant social contribution. The thing that sticks in my mind, right now, is a small, portable insulin pump, but that is only one of MANY developments attributed to Bern. There was a surgeon – a Nobel-prize winner – who specialized in the thyroid. And much more. Either Bern hired a good PR firm, or there are/were an unusually large number of talented people who came from here. By the time I got through that exhibit and another small one on “flight,” meaning emigration, from Syria and elsewhere, it was nearly closing time. 

The history museum is in a part of the city where there are a lot of other museums.  I know I won’t get to them all, but I walked around the area, just to see what was there. Then I walked back across the big bridge over the river to the old part of Bern. Incidentally, this bridge, which is really high, has nets on both sides of the bridge. Coming from the Bay Area, I assume the nets are to prevent suicides, but I don’t know. It looked as if it would be pretty easy to crawl out of the net and over the edge, but again, I don’t know. The views from the bridge are gorgeous! I walked to the Munster, or cathedral, and was able to see it from the outside, but I couldn’t get inside because it was closed. Then I just wandered around the old part of town, looking at the shops and the architecture. I was surprised to find a couple of fabric stores – again, nothing I couldn’t live without, but it was fun to browse. I also happened on a BUTTON STORE!  The shop owner spoke English, and I asked her about the store.  It had belonged to her mother for many years – as “just” a button store. People – including designers - came from all over Switzerland to the store to look for buttons. The daughter took it over from her mother a few years ago. She maintained the inventory of buttons, but added a few other items as well. The place seemed to be busy.  I kidded the owner about needing to travel from San Mateo to Bern to buy buttons from now on. (It sure is farther away than Stone Mountain!)

Before I took the bus back to the “burbs,” I had dinner in Bern. I ate a dish called, “röti,” which is based on shredded potatoes. It’s apparently typical of this area of Switzerland. It was pretty good, though it doesn’t compare with raclette! While I was eating, there was a protest march in Bern – about 30 people chanting and carrying posters. What little I could read had something to do with stopping the war machine.  My assumption is that it occurred because of today’s summit between Trump and Kim, but who knows? Anyway, I then made it back to the apartment and had a conversation in Spanish with my host.