Esther "Polly" Salaman () (, ; 6 January 1900 – 9 November 1995) was a Russian-born Jewish writer and physicist. She is best known for her memoir on Albert Einstein, her friend and teacher while studying at the University of Berlin. Biography Early life Esther Polianowsky was born in Zhytomyr to an observant Jewish timber merchant. In 1917, she was accepted to the Kiev University to study mathematics. As civil war and anti-Semitic pogroms spread across the Russian Empire, however, her father forbade her from leaving alone for Kiev. Polianowsky fought in the Ukrainian national resistance during the Russian Civil War, thereupon escaping to Mandatory Palestine in January 1920 to join a group of pioneer agricultural workers. She succeeded in securing travel documents for her widowed mother and four siblings, and paid a team of Polish foresters to lead them to the Polish border in secret. From there, Esther guided them to Palestine. Education Despite the volatile situation for Jews in Germany, Esther and her sister Feyga (Fania) elected to relocate to Berlin in the summer of 1922 to resume their education. Polianowsky's application to the University of Berlin was sponsored by Albert Einstein, whose recommendation gained her admission to the Faculty of Physics, in spite of her not having completed an entrance examination. While his pupil, Polianowsky developed a personal relationship with Einstein. He encouraged her writing after reading her article in the Frankfurter Zeitung recalling the murderous pogroms in Zhytomyr by Petliura's Cossacks during Orthodox Christmas of 1918. As the Nazi Party rose to prominence in Germany, Polianowsky was encouraged by Einstein to leave the country after graduation. He provided her with a recommendation to pursue doctoral work at the Cavendish Laboratory under Sir Ernest Rutherford. Her scholarship, funded by Jewish philanthropist Redcliffe Salaman, was conditioned on her later going to Israel to teach. Although this plan did not come to fruition, she grew close to the Salaman family and married Redcliffe's eldest son Myer, a pathologist. Polianowsky left the Cavendish in the summer of 1928, her PhD incomplete, to devote her life to her family. Early career At the suggestion of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Esther began writing fiction for an English audience. She published her first novel, Two Silver Roubles, in 1932, only six years after arriving in England knowing only Yiddish, Russian, German, and Hebrew. From 1940, Myer and Esther Salaman shared a large home in Cambridge