^me XXXIX 3, March 1984 £1 (To non-members) personality—and basically was what we would call Martin Stern a therapist, helping people, many of them women, with their emotional problems. There was an element of body contact, or 'wrestling', as well, all quite reminiscent of current trends. He seems to have been very successful in reading character and ^DISCOVERING ETTY'S DIARY understanding problems, with or without palms, and his clients were very devoted to him. In the Diary we follow Etty's increasing involve­ Record of a Remarkable Life ment with Spier, from her initial scepticism, through growing intellectual, emotional and physical contact, to a passionate, consuming love, despite his being twice her age. They also shared deep religious interests. Elty became his secretary I'urod "''•^' '^'"-'f^- ^y FJIy Hillcsum. and a.ssistanl and then his collaborator. by ArTiT *•'' ^- ^- '^"'•/"""^'- Translated The first quarter-or-so of the Diary presents the °'^ J- Pomerans. Cape. £8.50. not unfamiliar picture ofa young women seeking self-realisation through personal relationships and by ransacking literature and philosophy. She is '' ^'esci^leri'^'u "''"^ ^°°^^ '^^^ " harrowing one. reading Hegel, Kierkegaard and Dostoyevsky, Bui whv H ^'^°'"'= "^ classic, and it will. though we do not learn what she makes of them. •'''cr it ^..•; °.*'^ hear of it only now. forty years Rilke is very close to her heart, but it seems lo be ''"^ had I'M''""'"^ ^"y ^"s*-"'' "ic value of what the early work and the Letters. There is no ^"'^'<:rbork • ""'^ '^^"'•^ '•'<= ^«="' o"" '« ^hc mention of the Duino Elegies or the Sonnets to '^"schwii, h ?^" '^^"^''' °" 'he eventual road to Orpheus, which would be relevant lo her religious 'o anntu_ ' l"*^ ''^''' her diaries with a friend to pass preoccupations. Mr. Garlaandt has abridged Ihc yciirs to find ' " ^''''*^'' ^ho tried for many Diary from 400 lo some 200 pages- mostly cull­ *'"' that "> •> publisher for it, without success. It ^filer's .son who eventually showed the ing repetitions and quotations, he says, and he has certainly done it very well—but it is po.ssiblc thai 8faspcd''Th?'^ ^""^^^ '^^ •'• ^- Garlaandl. who we would learn more from the unpublished parts. "^'^"iinOr."u^'''"*^ immediately, and published '> over ^"^^''^«' *" 'he original Dutch. Stncc """d and ''°P'" have been sold in Through her eyes '^'"" Euror^^ '•^"^'at'ons are scheduled for the ^ P... .. Pcan countries and the U.S.A hef diary sh""' ^"s 27 when she started writing The events of the Diary unroll against the background of the occupying Nazis' increasingly "''" in the ^^""^ "P '" Deventer, an attractive harsh measures taken against the Dutch Jewish l'u'6'''='llyarlf" "'" "o'land, where her father, population. Each stage is recorded by Etty: the D Municin f "?.'"'^'''=''- ^^^ 'he headmaster of registration, the obligation lo wear the yellow star, ^^'•an Jew *^y"i"asiuni. Her mother, a Elly Hillesum restrictions on where food can be bought, pro­ u u""^" of sir "^"^ '^'='^<=ca Bernstein, was a room and her meals. Han's son Hans, a cook, and hibition of travel on trams, finally transportation .^ chaotipT^ temperament who ran a some- two lodgers, complete the household, which is a to Wcslerbork and points east. Etly shows us how !'''"8<=r broth '^'""'^- E"y had two talented closely-knit one. Etty's relations with 'Father Han' these events were experienced and felt al the time. WK'' his fir°'5'''- "^'^ha, a gifted pianist who had become quite intimate. We identify with her, see it all through her eyes, and share the experiences. As wc can see from the t '^ame ^!, ""= "^^ vitamins at the age of 17 When the Diary opens, Etty had just met Julius Spier, a Frankfurt-born German Jew of 55 who in response in Holland, a whole new generation will ^"y had t L '''°''- 1939 had come to The Netherlands, where his be able lo understand what happened in those foT°" 'os udt?" "'"^^ ''"=g^«= i" '=>«, then had sister lived, from Berlin. He had been a bank terrible years in a way thai no history textbook can en ''<=h it A? .t^"''"""' ^"'l ''"<=* •' well enough manager, had founded a publishing house and had communicate. ""Shining D, 'h<= t'me the diary starts she was studied singing. He had gone to Zurich to train "And now Jews may no longer visit green­ Jy^hology ^."''^'f studies with an interest in wilh Jung, and it was Jung who had encouraged grocers' shops, Ihey will soon have to hand in 0^ '"^'- u j; had been living in Amsterdam him to pursue his interest in 'psychochirology'— Iheir bicycles, Ihcy may no longer travel by tram OU "^-lives i^^.!^ ^^y^' and when the Diary reading character from palmprints—as a full- and they must be olT the streets by 8 o'clock at W^^^^^r H! "^^.r^"'^ """^ Gentile 62-year- time profession. Spier was obviously a charis­ night." •^^^ in rl""" ^-^g^if. as a sort of house- matic personality—he was called a 'magical' Continued on page 2 " 'or which she has an attractive Page 2 AJR INFORMATION MARCH 1984 Continued from page 1 Every human life is precious in itself, but there are also those, like Etty, who have an exemplary role. She was ambitious to be a writer, but didn't DISCOVERING ETTY'S DIARY know what direction to take. Through force of circumstances, she recorded her own transforma­ Etty had no illusions about what was happen­ in great comfort, but there is something inside tion. Mr. Garlaandt appends some of her letters ing. In June 1942 she wrote: me, tough and indestructible, that tells me I from Westerbork to the Diary, and her potential "I am also aware that there may come a time shall be able to bear diflerent circumstances too. as a writer of some magnitude emerges from them. when 1 shan't know where they (her parents) I am so glad that he is a Jew and I a Jewess. With remarkably precise observation she describes are, when they might be deported to perish And I shall do what 1 can to remain with him so life in the camp, in an almost detached manner miserably in some unknown place. 1 know this is that we get through these times together. And I which has a very powerful impact. She understood perfectly possible. The latest news is that all shall tell him this evening: I am not really that she was a witness, as in the beginning of one Jews will be transported out of Holland through frightened of anything, 1 feel so strong; it mat­ of these letters in which she laler describes the Drenthe Province and then on to Poland. And ters little whether you have to sleep on a hard night before a transport: 'he English radio has reported that 700,000 floor, or whether you are only allowed to walk "When I think of the faces of that squad of perished last year alone, in Germany and the through certain specified streets, and so on— armed, green-uniformed guards—my God, occupied territories. And even if we slay alive we these are all minor vexations, so insignificant those faces! 1 looked at them, each in turn, from shall carry the wounds with us throughout our compared with the infinite riches and possi­ behind the safety ofa window, and I have never lives . Tonight I'll be seeing somebody else in bilities we carry within us. been so frightened of anything in my life as 1 was trouble, a Catholic girl. For a Jew to be able to We must guard these and remain true to them of those faces. 1 sank to my knees with the words help a non-Jew these days, gives one a peculiar and keep faith with them. And I shall help you that preside over human life: And God made sense of power. [July 1942] And if God does not and slay with you, and yet leave you entirely man after His likeness. That passage spent a help me to go on, then I shall have to help God. free. diflicult morning with me. The surface ofthe earth is gradually turning into"^ 1 shall support your every step, outwardly and I have told you often enough that no words one greal prison camp and soon there will be inwardly. I think I have grown mature enough and images are adequate to describe nights like nobody left outside. The Jews here are telling now to bear a great many hard things in life and these. But still I must try to convey something of each other . that the Germans are burying us yet not to grow too hard inside." it lo you. One always has the feeling here of alive or exterminating us with gas." Despite the pressure of these dreadful events, being the ears and eyes of a piece of Jewish In an earlier entry, we can see her attitude Etty did not despair. Her experience of personal history, but there is also the need sometimes to develop. Spier (called S. in the Diary), lived "three liberation through profound love was paralleled be a still, small voice. streets, a canal and a little bridge" away from Etty: by a deep religious development which is hard to We must keep one another in touch with "There seemed to be a touch of nervousness convey. It was a very personal kind of religion, everything that happens in the various outposts just now in his voice, when he asked me some­ with an existential element in it, and a touch of this world, each one contributing his own what ironically on the telephone: 'Well, are you of pantheism and of quietism as well, worked little piece of stone to the great mosaic that will coming over here with your yellow star?' Only a out together with Spier.