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35 reviews for:
An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork
Eva Hoffman, Etty Hillesum
4.4 AVERAGE
35 reviews for:
An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork
Eva Hoffman, Etty Hillesum
4.4 AVERAGE
Loving this book. A friend from high school wrote a great play called The Wrestling Patient inspired by Etty's life and diaries. She was thoughtful, introspective, and remarkably hopeful about the state of the world and state of mankind considering the times in which she lived.
One of the best books I've ever read. I've been thinking about since I read the last sentence. What an amazing woman. What resolve. She's my new hero.
A diary reveals something unpolished and earnest in the soul, something one cannot always utter when aware of being seen and heard. The writer may walk more freely, perhaps, in the fields of a diary. I was drawn to Etty Hillesum’s diary after reading about her in Anne Michael’s Correspondences. She wrote her diaries and letters at around the same age as I am now, so I imagined her as someone akin to myself, with similar longings, although her afflictions were as unmeasurable as they are unimaginable to us on this side of time and land.
The diary begins when Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman, is twenty-seven years old. We already know how it ends, that she will die at the age of twenty-nine in Auschwitz, and so it’s disquieting to find lines likes these, written while still in Amsterdam: “Sometimes I think that my life is only just beginning. That the real difficulties are still to come, although at times I feel that I have struggled through so many already. I shall study and try to comprehend, I shall allow myself to become thoroughly perplexed by whatever comes my way and apparently diverts me, yes, I shall allow myself to be perplexed time and again perhaps, in order to arrive at greater certainty.”
She was a passionate, tender and giving lover, and much of the first half of the book encompasses her relationships, particularly with Spier. But there, too, she emphasizes that to give is more valuable than to receive and that we mustn’t dwell excessively on ourselves, or else we might miss the mighty, eternal current that is life. It is not naivety, for Etty was aware of the destruction and torture of her people, something she soon felt upon herself. She bore her suffering with grace and did not grow bitter when the world built more walls around her—for being part of the Jewish element—but kept the candle of herself lit, burning, guiding: “I feel so strong; it matters little whether you have to sleep on a hard floor, or whether you are only allowed to walk through certain specified streets, and so on, these are all minor vexations, so insignificant compared with the infinite riches and possibilities we carry within us. We must guard these and remain true to them and keep faith with them.”
Beauty, synonymous with hope, can be found where there is none, because “heaven is inside one, like Rilke's "cosmic interior."
In the second half of the book, when she is in Westerbork, her voice becomes more serious and spiritual, and yet it is still a voice of compassion and empathy, a more mature voice that recognizes the importance to give at a time of violence and darkness, even if one’s own hand is growing impossibly weak. The biblical line, the peace that passeth understanding, can be attached to Etty. She held an exceptional degree of gratitude to be able to live and help her kin even for a single more day. This manifested in kindness spread to those suffering beside her. Her love did not always stem effortlessly. She was as haunted and aching as others at the time. Her love was an act, a tree rooted in the soil of her own reflective and passionate soul. Perhaps for Etty love was, as Simone Weil wrote, a direction and not a state of the soul.
I don’t leave reviews very often, but I want to remember Etty. I want to find her voice, again and again, a short-lived (indeed, an interrupted) and luminous sound in the long, dark corridors of history.
“In the evenings we go and watch the sun setting over the purple lupins behind the barbed wire.”
The diary begins when Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman, is twenty-seven years old. We already know how it ends, that she will die at the age of twenty-nine in Auschwitz, and so it’s disquieting to find lines likes these, written while still in Amsterdam: “Sometimes I think that my life is only just beginning. That the real difficulties are still to come, although at times I feel that I have struggled through so many already. I shall study and try to comprehend, I shall allow myself to become thoroughly perplexed by whatever comes my way and apparently diverts me, yes, I shall allow myself to be perplexed time and again perhaps, in order to arrive at greater certainty.”
She was a passionate, tender and giving lover, and much of the first half of the book encompasses her relationships, particularly with Spier. But there, too, she emphasizes that to give is more valuable than to receive and that we mustn’t dwell excessively on ourselves, or else we might miss the mighty, eternal current that is life. It is not naivety, for Etty was aware of the destruction and torture of her people, something she soon felt upon herself. She bore her suffering with grace and did not grow bitter when the world built more walls around her—for being part of the Jewish element—but kept the candle of herself lit, burning, guiding: “I feel so strong; it matters little whether you have to sleep on a hard floor, or whether you are only allowed to walk through certain specified streets, and so on, these are all minor vexations, so insignificant compared with the infinite riches and possibilities we carry within us. We must guard these and remain true to them and keep faith with them.”
Beauty, synonymous with hope, can be found where there is none, because “heaven is inside one, like Rilke's "cosmic interior."
In the second half of the book, when she is in Westerbork, her voice becomes more serious and spiritual, and yet it is still a voice of compassion and empathy, a more mature voice that recognizes the importance to give at a time of violence and darkness, even if one’s own hand is growing impossibly weak. The biblical line, the peace that passeth understanding, can be attached to Etty. She held an exceptional degree of gratitude to be able to live and help her kin even for a single more day. This manifested in kindness spread to those suffering beside her. Her love did not always stem effortlessly. She was as haunted and aching as others at the time. Her love was an act, a tree rooted in the soil of her own reflective and passionate soul. Perhaps for Etty love was, as Simone Weil wrote, a direction and not a state of the soul.
I don’t leave reviews very often, but I want to remember Etty. I want to find her voice, again and again, a short-lived (indeed, an interrupted) and luminous sound in the long, dark corridors of history.
“In the evenings we go and watch the sun setting over the purple lupins behind the barbed wire.”
Etty Hillesum’s outlook on life is something I strive for- an unending desire (& capability) to find the good in people and in every situation. That quality is what made this account so difficult to finish, as I watched her spirit be broken, only to rise back up. But each time it broke into more pieces than the last time. It’s hard to rate any person’s personal account of a world atrocity. Settling on 4 stars; several elements of Etty’s experience will stay with me a long while.
One of the OE books in 2012. I remember highlighting and marking it up extensively, and then letting my mom read my copy over a long flight. She then forgot it on the plane. :(
"Now I am going to send you something nice, too, something I have just read about Paula Modersohn-Becker: "A deeply unexpectant attitude toward life was in her blood, something that was, in fact, genuine expression of a supreme expectation: disregard of all things external thanks to an instinctive perception of one's own riches, and a secret, not entirely explicable, inner happiness."
"Every situation, however miserable, is complete in itself and contains the good as well as the bad. All I really wanted to say is this: "making the best of things" is a nauseating expression, and so is "seeing the good in everything."
Bahkan seorang manusia dengan kekayaaan jiwa seperti Etty pada akhirnya berserah dan mengaku lelah memaksakan perspektif baik, setidaknya disurat-surat terakhirnya. Memang perlu upaya luarbiasa untuk menghidupi frasa "keburukan tak perlu dibalas keburukan." Kalau saja ia cukup lama berada di kamp, apakah mungkin kita menyaksikan perubahan pada Etty?
Untungnya buku ini hanya mencatat kehidupannya dari tahun 1941 - 1943.
Moral yang bisa diambil cukup jelas: beruntung mereka dengan inner-life kaya raya, resisten dari segala macam perilaku manusia yang berpotensi merombak cara melihat dunia, namun cukup introspektif untuk berkembang dan tidak mengganggu hak orang lain. Etty hidup dengan percaya diri di dalam dunianya sendiri. Setidaknya dalam jendela waktu 3 tahun (atau 1 tahun - terhitung masa kamp-nya)
"Every situation, however miserable, is complete in itself and contains the good as well as the bad. All I really wanted to say is this: "making the best of things" is a nauseating expression, and so is "seeing the good in everything."
Bahkan seorang manusia dengan kekayaaan jiwa seperti Etty pada akhirnya berserah dan mengaku lelah memaksakan perspektif baik, setidaknya disurat-surat terakhirnya. Memang perlu upaya luarbiasa untuk menghidupi frasa "keburukan tak perlu dibalas keburukan." Kalau saja ia cukup lama berada di kamp, apakah mungkin kita menyaksikan perubahan pada Etty?
Untungnya buku ini hanya mencatat kehidupannya dari tahun 1941 - 1943.
Moral yang bisa diambil cukup jelas: beruntung mereka dengan inner-life kaya raya, resisten dari segala macam perilaku manusia yang berpotensi merombak cara melihat dunia, namun cukup introspektif untuk berkembang dan tidak mengganggu hak orang lain. Etty hidup dengan percaya diri di dalam dunianya sendiri. Setidaknya dalam jendela waktu 3 tahun (atau 1 tahun - terhitung masa kamp-nya)
A diary reveals something unpolished and earnest in the soul, something one cannot always utter when aware of being seen and heard. The writer may walk more freely, perhaps, in the fields of a diary. I was drawn to Etty Hillesum’s diary after reading about her in Anne Michael’s Correspondences. She wrote her diaries and letters at around the same age as I am now, so I imagined her as someone akin to myself, with similar longings, although her afflictions were as unmeasurable as they are unimaginable to us on this side of time and land.
The diary begins when Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman, is twenty-seven years old. We already know how it ends, that she will die at the age of twenty-nine in Auschwitz, and so it’s disquieting to find lines likes these, written while still in Amsterdam: “Sometimes I think that my life is only just beginning. That the real difficulties are still to come, although at times I feel that I have struggled through so many already. I shall study and try to comprehend, I shall allow myself to become thoroughly perplexed by whatever comes my way and apparently diverts me, yes, I shall allow myself to be perplexed time and again perhaps, in order to arrive at greater certainty.”
She was a passionate, tender and giving lover, and much of the first half of the book encompasses her relationships, particularly with Spier. But there, too, she emphasizes that to give is more valuable than to receive and that we mustn’t dwell excessively on ourselves, or else we might miss the mighty, eternal current that is life. It is not naivety, for Etty was aware of the destruction and torture of her people, something she soon felt upon herself. She bore her suffering with grace and did not grow bitter when the world built more walls around her—for being part of the Jewish element—but kept the candle of herself lit, burning, guiding: “I feel so strong; it matters little whether you have to sleep on a hard floor, or whether you are only allowed to walk through certain specified streets, and so on, these are all minor vexations, so insignificant compared with the infinite riches and possibilities we carry within us. We must guard these and remain true to them and keep faith with them.”
Beauty, synonymous with hope, can be found where there is none, because “heaven is inside one, like Rilke's "cosmic interior."
In the second half of the book, when she is in Westerbork, her voice becomes more serious and spiritual, and yet it is still a voice of compassion and empathy, a more mature voice that recognizes the importance to give at a time of violence and darkness, even if one’s own hand is growing impossibly weak. The biblical line, the peace that passeth understanding, can be attached to Etty. She held an exceptional degree of gratitude to be able to live and help her kin even for a single more day. This manifested in kindness spread to those suffering beside her. Her love did not always stem effortlessly. She was as haunted and aching as others at the time. Her love was an act, a tree rooted in the soil of her own reflective and passionate soul. Perhaps for Etty love was, as Simone Weil wrote, a direction and not a state of the soul.
I don’t leave reviews very often, but I want to remember Etty. I want to find her voice, again and again, a short-lived (indeed, an interrupted) and luminous sound in the long, dark corridors of history.
“In the evenings we go and watch the sun setting over the purple lupins behind the barbed wire.”
The diary begins when Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman, is twenty-seven years old. We already know how it ends, that she will die at the age of twenty-nine in Auschwitz, and so it’s disquieting to find lines likes these, written while still in Amsterdam: “Sometimes I think that my life is only just beginning. That the real difficulties are still to come, although at times I feel that I have struggled through so many already. I shall study and try to comprehend, I shall allow myself to become thoroughly perplexed by whatever comes my way and apparently diverts me, yes, I shall allow myself to be perplexed time and again perhaps, in order to arrive at greater certainty.”
She was a passionate, tender and giving lover, and much of the first half of the book encompasses her relationships, particularly with Spier. But there, too, she emphasizes that to give is more valuable than to receive and that we mustn’t dwell excessively on ourselves, or else we might miss the mighty, eternal current that is life. It is not naivety, for Etty was aware of the destruction and torture of her people, something she soon felt upon herself. She bore her suffering with grace and did not grow bitter when the world built more walls around her—for being part of the Jewish element—but kept the candle of herself lit, burning, guiding: “I feel so strong; it matters little whether you have to sleep on a hard floor, or whether you are only allowed to walk through certain specified streets, and so on, these are all minor vexations, so insignificant compared with the infinite riches and possibilities we carry within us. We must guard these and remain true to them and keep faith with them.”
Beauty, synonymous with hope, can be found where there is none, because “heaven is inside one, like Rilke's "cosmic interior."
In the second half of the book, when she is in Westerbork, her voice becomes more serious and spiritual, and yet it is still a voice of compassion and empathy, a more mature voice that recognizes the importance to give at a time of violence and darkness, even if one’s own hand is growing impossibly weak. The biblical line, the peace that passeth understanding, can be attached to Etty. She held an exceptional degree of gratitude to be able to live and help her kin even for a single more day. This manifested in kindness spread to those suffering beside her. Her love did not always stem effortlessly. She was as haunted and aching as others at the time. Her love was an act, a tree rooted in the soil of her own reflective and passionate soul. Perhaps for Etty love was, as Simone Weil wrote, a direction and not a state of the soul.
I don’t leave reviews very often, but I want to remember Etty. I want to find her voice, again and again, a short-lived (indeed, an interrupted) and luminous sound in the long, dark corridors of history.
“In the evenings we go and watch the sun setting over the purple lupins behind the barbed wire.”
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
A book I will never forget. A truly transformative reading.
I felt so connected to Etty—her musings about sex, relationships, and the human condition resonate so strongly with my current experience. Her spirituality in the midst of the Holocaust inspires me and gives me hope for God’s presence in the midst of human depravity.