Einstein's UK immigration papers displayed

12 May 2011 | Posted by Carl Thomas

Albert Einstein's UK immigration papers have been put on display for the first time in Liverpool.

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) has displayed the physicist's landing card from his arrival in the country after fleeing from his homeland when Adolf Hitler came to power.

A bounty was put on the Jewish man's head by the Nazi party, naming him an enemy of the regime and prompting Einstein to seek refuge elsewhere.

Lucy Gardner, an assistant curator at the UKBA's national museum in Liverpool, commented: "We didn't know this landing card ever existed until we visited UK Border Agency officers at Heathrow.

"We were keen on acquiring any documents relating to immigration, but were stunned to find paperwork relating to such a prominent historical figure as Albert Einstein."

Landing cards were completed by everyone passing through UK immigration controls into Britain and Einstein's card confirmed that he was bound for Oxford after travelling from Ostende in Belgium to Dover on May 26th 1933.

Ms Gardner added that, remarkably, the landing card bears Einstein's signature and marks his profession as 'professor', while listing his nationality as Swiss.

"This shows how Einstein had renounced his German citizenship only weeks earlier in angry reaction to Nazi policies," the assistant curator explained.

The UK immigration documents will be on display in Liverpool's Merseyside Maritime Museum in the exhibition 'Seized! The Border and Customs Uncovered'.