"An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork"

Paper Summary:

This paper studies discusses Etty Hillesum's Auschwitz diary as well as letters she had written to people that are included in the book. The author finds that her story is a remarkable and tragic one and her diary describes her everyday life in a very optimistic and surprising way as she wrote about her love life and her simple adventures and did not fill her diary with hate for the Nazis but only with hope and optimism.

From the Paper:

"Etty Hillesum was a Dutch Jew from Amsterdam. Her life might have been unremarkable and her story might never have been told had she not been an aspiring writer. Through these letters and diary entries, I watched a young woman in her mid and late twenties for almost three years until she died at Auschwitz in 1943. Her book begins about nine months after Hitler's Germany invaded the Netherlands. In addition to her diary, she wrote letters to her loved ones from Westerbork Detention Camp, where Jews were confined before being taken to the death camps. "If I have one duty in these times," she asserted, "it is to bear witness. Etty Hillesum wrote about the little things in her life, like eating breakfast. She also wrote the same things that all young women write about"
men and romance. Considering her circumstances, I expected that much of her day was spent anticipating her empty future and contemplating when she was going to die. Her optimism and her gentle spirit, particularly under these dire circumstances, were astonishing."

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