The physicist and his wife were facing unimaginable danger. His accomplishments, which had earned him celebrity status around the world, weren’t enough to shield him from the gathering storm clouds of war. His government saw him as an outsider, a rebel, an outspoken pacifist. They wanted him dead.

The couple became refugees fleeing a lethally racist regime. They went to the United Kingdom, living for a time under armed guard, before seeking more permanent asylum in the United States. The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, had offered him a job—and with it, a chance to survive and make a new life.

It was an agreement that worked out well for both parties: Albert Einstein gained his freedom,