Family Books on Grin
Albert Einstein is one of the most known scientists. Therefore, it is surprising that one of his fatherly protectors, who had helped him to get enrolled at the prestigious polytechnical school (ETH) at Zurich, is poorly known: it is the authors great-grandfather Gustav Maier. He was born at Ulm, Germany, in 1844 and, together with his spouse Regina Friedlaender, they were good friends of Hermann and Pauline Einstein-Koch. Thus, it was natural that the Einsteins reached out to Gustav Maier, meanwhile installed at Zurich, for assisting the 16-year-old Albert in getting his education. Indeed, the Einsteins hat moved for professional reasons to Italy, and it would have been very difficult for Albert to get a higher education there. At the arrival of Albert at Zurich, in the fall of 1895, Gustav Maier had recognized immediately that the young man was exceptionally gifted. He reached out to one of his acquaintances, Albin Herzog, rector of the ETH, informing him about a prodigy and whether the young man could start his studies at the ETH despite his young age. In this book, these important steps in Albert Einstein's life are illustrated with source material. Furthermore, the biography of Gustav Maier is presented, mostly in his own words, and the Jewish family origin is explored. Indeed, it was in the Jewish congregation at Ulm where the Maiers and the Einsteins had met and started their friendship. This book contains source material from private family archives.
Hans Wolfgang Maier was born in Frankfurt in 1882 as the youngest of three sons of Gustav and Regina Maier-Friedlaender. In 1892, the family moved to Switzerland, mainly to escape the professional barriers erected for Jews in Germany, who were not allowed to work in public service. There, Gustav Maier declared Judaism a family secret and joined the liberal reformed Zwingli church with his family; he retired from banking and became a writer, ethicist, and pacifist. In fall 1895, the 16-year-old Albert Einstein was a guest at the Maier home in Zurich and Gustav assisted the gifted young man to be accepted at the Federal Polytechnical School, ETH to study physics (see the book Gustav Maier. Sponsor of the young Albert Einstein, published by the same author). Hence, since 1895 Hans was acquainted with Albert Einstein; 38 years later, Albert's son Eduard, a brilliant medical student, started having mental problems and became the patient of Hans, who had become director of the Psychiatric University Clinic at Zurich, the "Burghölzli". This book illustrates the life of the psychiatrist Hans Wolfgang Maier and his family with documents and images from a private Maier family archive.
There are families in which a certain profession is passed down from generation to generation. This was also the case in two Swiss families linked by marriage: Gustav Maier and Moisey Esther. Over three generations (1914 to 2020), both families have produced an unusually large number of members who worked in the medical field.
Beatrice Maier Anner, herself a part of this extraordinary family, uses this accumulation of doctors as a hook to record the history of these two strands of her family in a book. The author enriches her family biography with a variety of sources. On the basis of the many (historical) photographs, letters and other documents, a multi-layered and, above all, approachable picture of the two families emerges.
The lives of the various family members are considered chronologically and roughly outlined, with a special focus on the most important professional stations in five psychiatric hospitals in Switzerland: Burghölzli, Rosegg, Waldau, Königsfelden and Littenheid. "Three generations of doctors and two world wars" – as the title of the book suggests, Beatrice Maier Anner's book aims to appeal not only to readers who are interested in Swiss history in general, but also to those who want to learn more about the effects of the First and Second World Wars on (Jewish) professional and family life.
For decades, the author has been managing a large family archive, which she has painstakingly preserved, organized and digitized in recent years. After she had compiled five books about her ancestors, some of whom were well-known, in which she classified their most important stages of life historically and chronologically and showed them in carefully documented pictures, her descendants and relatives also wanted a book about herself.
In this last booklet about her family history, Beatrice Maier Anner presents her own life. Detailed commentaries on all the photos can be found at various points in her five books that have already been published – but the present volume deliberately limits itself to letting the pictures speak for themselves and thus serves as a resting point and conclusion to the exciting family series about the Maiers, Meierhofers and Anners.
Almost every family has secrets that requires a meticulous search of old photo albums and documents, and archival work, to explore. Especially when a family member disappears, it often keeps the relatives busy for several generations. This was also the case in the family of Beatrice Maier Anner, whose grandmother Leonie Laissle disappeared in Zurich in the spring of 1915.
The fate of her grandmother, who left behind her husband and four children when she disappeared, has occupied her since childhood. Also because there is hardly any trace of the grandmother – no writings, no pictures. In her search for clues, the author learns not only more about Leonie Laissle, but also about the lives of her two sisters, Hedwig and Liesel/Alice Leissle.
In this book, Maier Anner takes her readers on an exciting and twisty search for her missing grandmother, but also for the history of her family. On the basis of various sources such as photographs, official documents and speeches, which the author has painstakingly brought together, an overall picture of the different fates of the family members finally emerges. Maier Anner's book is aimed at all those who are interested in history and want to accompany her on this detective journey into family history.
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