Etty

In her last letter thrown from the train transporting her to her death at Auschwitz, Etty wrote:

“We left the camp singing”

Her parents and brother were placed in wagon number 14, she was railed away in wagon 12 and after that, never seen again. Etty, (Esther) was born in Middleburg, Netherlands. Her Father Levi worked as a teacher of classical languages.  Her mother Riva was Russian who fled to the Netherlands from a progrom there. She had two brothers Japp and Mischa. The family were not observant orthodox Jews but Etty was particularly familiar with Hebrew and the Bible.

Etty: A Diary, 1941-1943
by Etty Hillesum; Arnold J. Pomerans (Trans); Gaarlandt, J.G. (Intro)

Arnold Julius Pomerans (Etty’s translator of her diaries posthumously) was born to a Jewish family in Königsberg, Germany (present-day Kaliningrad, Russia), and spent his childhood in Memel and Berlin. In 1936, to escape the Nazi regime, the family moved first to Yugoslavia and then to South Africa. In 1948, he emigrated to the UK, settling in London, where he became a full-time translator after first working for several years as a physics teacher. In 1956, he married Erica White, who served as his editor, and the couple moved to an old cottage in Polstead, Suffolk. I went in search of extracts from her letters and diaries and posted them below…

‘A Jewish Girl of Tangier’ by Charles Landell

‘There is a deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there too. But more often than not stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath. Then he must be dug out again.’ 

“Portrait Of A Jewish Woman Holding A Prayer Book” by Lazar Krestin

‘This afternoon I suddenly found myself kneeling on the brown coconut matting in the bathroom. My head hidden in my dressing gown, which slung over the broken cane chair. Kneeling doesn’t come easily to me; I feel a sort of embarrassment. Why? Probably because of the critical, rationalist, atheistic part of me as well. And yet every so often I have great urge to kneel down with my face in my hands and in this way to find some peace and to listen to that hidden source within me.’   24th Sept.1941.

“Portrait Of A Young Jewess,” C.1928 by Bernard Meninsky

'There is a sort of lamentation and loving kindness as a little wisdom inside me that cries to be let out. Sometimes several different dialogues run through me at the same time, images and figures, moods, a sudden flash of something that must be my very own truth. Love for human beings must be hard fought for. Not through politics, but in myself. Still a lot of false shame to get rid of. And there is God. The girl who could kneel but learned to do so on the rough coconut matting in an untidy bathroom’  22 Nov.1941.

:Desolation Of Tamar” by James Jacques Joseph Tissot

“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 can safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn’t seem 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” 12th July 1942. 

“Jewish Quarter In Amsterdam; Judengasse In Amsterdam, Ecke Jodenbreestraat,” 1905  by Max Liebermann

When I think of the faces of that squad or armed, green uniformed faces-my God those faces! I looked at them, each in turn, from behind the safety of a window, and I have never been so frightened of anything in my life. I sank to my knees with the words that preside over human life: and God made man after his likeness. That passage spent a difficult morning with me. I have told you often enough that no words and images are adequate to describe nights like these. But still I must try to convey something of it to you…” 24th August 1943 (from a letter to Hans Wegerif)

Etty’s writings reveal a woman who celebrated life and remained an undaunted example of courage, sympathy, and compassion.