An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork, by Etty Hillesum (1914–1943)
JOY PRAKASH OFM
Etty or Esther was a nonconformist Jewess in Holland. At university, she was very much geared towards reason and thought, while also having some addictions like smoking. Friendship with two men helped her become more free and mature. She went into therapy with one of them, Julian Spier, a disciple of Carl Jung, and so opened out the levels of emotion and feelings, imagination and memory.
Thus began an inward journey that helped her value her intuition, above all her dreams. “He attended at the level of my soul.” She said in her Diary.
He gave her a New Testament and she often quoted Jesus, “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.” Etty began to celebrate her birthday on the date she first met her psycho-chirologist, Julian Spier. She wrote in her diary, “On the third of February I was one year old. I think I’ll celebrate 3rd February as my birthday from now on – it is more important than 15 January, the day my umbilical cord was cut.”
Delving into her non-rational, self- conscious side, helped her to become free. Under Spier’s tutelage she read the Bible, the writings of St. Augustine, Fjodor
Dostoevsky , Rainer Maria Rilke and others. She could understand the deeper meaning, one that would transform her outlook on life, on God, and on her fellow human beings. She might now just sit, just be, free. A woman who had never really prayed says, “I sink on my knees and find peace.” Finally, she named the discovery of her deepest and best self, God. Finding God at the root of being was to experience belonging, connectedness and communion. So Etty became a free, universal person who had the courage
to confront and to accept the awful reality of
her times, and refused to hate. She went, in solidarity with her own people, to board the train to the concentration camp singing.
Victor Frankl says, “Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man and
as he really is. After all, man is that being
who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz, however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright with the Lord’s prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”
Etty Hillesum, who died during the Holocaust in Auschwitz, had a sense of God which she cherished on her own, in spite of being brought up by unbelieving parents. Here is what she wrote on the night before being sent into the gas chambers. Shouldn’t our Christian belief become personal, like that of Etty?
On a Sunday morning, Etty made the following prayer from her death chamber: “Dear God, these are anxious times. Tonight for the first time I lay in the dark with burning eyes as scene after scene of human suffering passed before me. I shall promise You one thing, O God, just one very small thing: I shall never burden my today with cares about my tomorrow, although that takes some practice. Each day is sufficient unto itself. I shall try to help You, God, to stop my strength ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves.
“And that is all we can manage these
days, and also all that really matters: that
we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us but we must help You and defend your dwelling place inside us to the last. There are, it is true, some who, even at this late stage, are putting their vacuum cleaners and silver forks and spoons in safe keeping, instead of guarding YOU, dear God.
“And there are those who want to put their bodies in safe keeping but who are nothing more now than a shelter for a thousand fears and bitter feelings. And they say, “I shan’t let them get me into their clutches.” But they forget that no one is in their clutches who is in your arms. I am beginning to feel a little more peaceful, God, thanks to this conversation with YOU.
“You are sure to go through lean times with me now and then, when my faith weakens a little, but believe me I shall always labour for You and remain faithful to You and I shall never drive You from my presence.
“I have strength
enough, God, for suffering
on a grand scale, but there
are more than a thousand
everyday cares that leap
up on me without warning
like so many fleas. So I
scratch away desperately
and tell myself, “This day has been taken care of now, the protective walls of an hospitable home still surround me like a well-worn, familiar piece of clothing, there is food enough for today and the bed with the white sheets, so don’t let me waste even one atom of my strength on petty material cares. Let me use and spend every minute and turn this into a fruitful day, one stone more in the foundations on which to build our so uncertain future”.
“The jasmine behind my house has been completely ruined by the rains and storms of
the last few days, its white blossoms are floating about in muddy black pools on the low garage roof. But somewhere inside me the jasmine continues to blossom undisturbed, just as profusely and delicately as ever it did. And it spreads its scent round the House in which You dwell, O God. You can see, I look after You, I bring you not only my tears and my forebodings on this stormy, grey Sunday morning, I even bring You scented jasmine. And I shall bring you all the flowers I shall meet on my way, and truly there are many of those.
“I shall make You at home always. Even if I should be locked up in a narrow cell and a cloud should drift past my small barred window, then I shall bring you that cloud, Oh God, while there is still the strength in me to do so, I cannot promise You anything for tomorrow, but my intentions are good, You can see.
“And now I shall venture out upon this day. I shall meet a great many people today and evil rumours and threats will again assault me like so many enemy soldiers besieging an inviolable fortress.” Her diary is a continuous, animated dialogue with herself, a constant drive toward
her own truth. She knew how to follow subtle movements of her feelings and how to question and criticize herself.”
Once she was yelled at by a young Gestapo officer. She wrote in her journal, “I felt no indignation, rather a real compassion and would like to ask, “Did you have a very unhappy childhood, has your girlfriend let you down.”
At one moment she said, “Everyone must be turned into a dwelling dedicated to You, O God. I shall try to find a dwelling place and a refuge for You in as many houses as possible. There are many empty houses. I shall prepare them all for You, the most honoured Guest.” Etty had a deep sense of the beauty of each person; she felt that each one was carrying the mystery of God in a capacity to be, to love and to be loved.
Pope Benedict XVI, during his General Audience of February 13th 2013, made the following observation: “I am thinking of Etty Hillesum who died in Auschwitz. At first far from God, she discovered him looking deep within her and she wrote, “There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too. But more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath. Then he must be dug out again” (Diaries, 97).
The global closure of our churches, lockout from the House of God, silence in our prayer spaces, and exclusion from the source and summit of the Christian life have been a trial for the living communion of the faith. Etty reminds us that God is deeply ingrained in the very fabric of our being, he comes alive even in the darkest hour of night as the Dawn!
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