Etty Hillesum

Esther "Etty" Hillesum (15 January 1914 – 30 November 1943) was a Dutch Jewish author of confessional letters and diaries which describe both her religious awakening and the persecutions of Jewish people in Amsterdam during the German occupation. In 1943, she was deported and murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp. After completing school in 1932, she moved to Amsterdam to study law and Slavic languages. whom she had been consulting for a month. Although his patient, Etty also became his secretary, friend, and, eventually, his lover. His influence on her spiritual development is apparent in her diaries; as well as teaching her how to deal with her depressive and egocentric episodes, he introduced her to the Bible and St. Augustine, and helped her develop a deeper understanding of the work of Rilke and Dostoyevsky. She worked there for a month, but returned in June 1943, by which time she had refused offers to go into hiding, much to the consternation of her non-Jewish friends. This refusal was due to her belief that her duty was to support others scheduled to be transported from Westerbork to the concentration camps in German-occupied Poland and Germany. On 5 July 1943, her personnel status was suddenly revoked, and she became a camp internee, along with her father, mother, and brother Mischa.

On 7 September 1943, the family was deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz. Only Jaap Hillesum did not go with them; he arrived in Westerbork after their removal, and in February 1944, he was sent to Bergen-Belsen, dying shortly after its liberation in April 1945. Her diaries reflect the inner turmoil that she experiences during her young adulthood, as well as the healing and growth during the years before her murder.

Russian authors and Christian mystics likely contributed to Hillesum's understanding of spirituality. She did not strive for ecstasy, but longed to meet the depth of her own interior and life itself. Her spirituality was not confined to her intellectual understanding of a greater power and is reflected in her diaries. In the concentration camp of Westerbork, she had unusual experiences of spiritual awakenings and insight: "Those two months behind barbed wire have been the two richest and most intense months of my life, in which my highest values were so deeply confirmed. I have learnt to love Westerbork".

Hillesum suffered great inner turmoil during her young adulthood, but increasingly transforms into a woman of maturity and wisdom. Attempts to have them published proved fruitless until 1979, when Smelik's son, the director of the Etty Hillesum Research Centre, approached publisher J. G. Gaarlandt. An abridged edition of her diaries appeared in 1981 under the title , followed by a collection of her letters from Westerbork. A complete edition of her letters and diaries was published in Dutch in 1986 and translated into English in 2002. Her diaries were translated into 18 languages. Her letters were sent to friends and Hillesum's final postcard was thrown from the train in Westerbork, where it was discovered by Dutch farmers after her death.

Richard Layard has spoken with great appreciation of Hillesum's view that one must preserve one's inner self, or core.

Rowan Rheingans has drawn on Hillesum's writing, particularly on the coexistence of beauty and horror, and on allowing room for sorrow, in her album "The lines we draw together".

Palestinian writer Dina Awwad-Srour and Israeli Rabbi Emma Sham-Ba Ayalon are friends and peace activists who together created Etty Hillesum cards which contain quotes from Hillesum's writings in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. Both women were inspired by Hillesum's writings and have used the cards as the basis for a ritual commemoration on Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel/Palestine.

In 2024, the research book "The Bible of Etty Hillesum" was published in Israel by Doron Braunshtein.

The Italian music project Camera Sambô released "Remembering Etty Hillesum" in 2024.

Publications An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941–1943 Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life the Diaries, 1941–1943 and Letters from Westerbork Etty Hillesum: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters) Anne Frank and Etty Hillesum: Inscribing Spirituality and Sexuality Etty Hillesum: Letters from Westerbork

Research centre and museum Life Interrupted . Monument in remembrance of Etty Hillesum. On 13 June 2006, the Etty Hillesum Research Centre (EHOC) was officially opened as part of Ghent University with a celebration at Sint-Pietersplein 5. It studies and promotes the research of Hillesum's World War II letters and diaries. and the local secondary schools are named after her. There is also a modest museum dedicated to her memory, the Etty Hillesum Centre, housed at Roggestraat 3, Deventer, the location of a former synagogue and Jewish school.