As part of my Lenten journey this year, I am revisiting Etty Hillesum. A young Dutch Jewish woman who began to keep a diary nine months after Hitler’s troops invaded the Netherlands, Etty went on to fill eleven exercise books with her reflections (one of which remains lost). She wrote not only about what was happening around her as the Nazis gained a stranglehold on her homeland, but also about what was going on in within her. Each time I read Etty, I am pierced by her words, by her persistence in finding beauty amid destruction, and by her refusal to cede her soul to the brutality of those who thought her less than human.
As I worked on yesterday’s reflection here and came to the words about packing for the two-month journey, I thought of a passage that Etty wrote as she was preparing to go to the labor camp at Westerbork, a “last stop” on the way to Auschwitz. Etty had volunteered to go with the first group of Jews to be sent to the camp. Those bound for Westerbork were allowed only one small suitcase. Etty writes, “Tonight I dreamed I had to pack my case. I tossed and turned, fretting about what shoes to take—all of them hurt my feet. And how was I to pack all my underwear and food for three days and blankets into one suitcase or rucksack? And I had to find room somewhere for the Bible. And if possible for Rilke’s Book of Hours and Letters to a Young Poet.”
To be thinking of saving room for Rilke on the journey she was making . . .
Forced into a path beyond her control, Etty made choices about how she would travel. In a letter from Westerbork, she wrote, “I know that those who hate have good reason to do so. But why should we always have to choose the cheapest and easiest way? It has been brought home forcibly to me here how every atom of hatred added to the world makes it an even more inhospitable place.”
At Westerbork Etty had a job that enabled her to travel back and forth between the camp and Amsterdam. She had many opportunities to escape, and on one occasion friends tried to kidnap her to keep her from returning to the camp. Etty refused, believing that her place was with her people who were suffering.
In September 1943, Etty was sent, along with her parents and one of her brothers, to Auschwitz. As they left Westerbork, Etty scribbled a postcard and flung it from the train. On it she had written, “We left the camp singing.”
Etty did not return.
History can twist on itself in terrible ways; too often humanity returns to landscapes of destruction, creating them anew for a new time. The season of Lent challenges us to break this cycle. It confronts us with the landscape in which we live, not just individually and personally but also collectively. Lent calls us to reckon with how our interior terrain connects with the terrain of the world around us and to become more clear about how they shape each other. This season reminds us, as Etty does in her writings, that attending to our own souls is not a selfish endeavor; we do this for the life of the world.
I find myself wondering what kind of conversations Etty and Jephthah’s daughter might have—these women bound to a fate not of their making, delivered to a death beyond comprehending. Yet they each found what choices they could make along the way. In this season, what will we choose? How will our choosing make a difference in the life of those who have fewer choices than we do? How will our choices work toward breaking the cycles of destruction and bringing forth the flourishing that lies within our power?
And so we return to the story of the daughter of Jephthah . . .
Friday
To say that it was not an easy trip would be almost comical. Life in Mizpah had barely prepared us for two months of travel, of making do with what little we had with us, of the dangers of the mountains, of constant togetherness. It was probably the latter that provided the greatest challenge. We learned quickly how to adapt physically. But it didn’t take long for the emotional stress to show itself. Even when it wasn’t talked about, we knew all too keenly the reason for our journey. And so Sarah would accuse Hannah of taking more than her share of water, and Rachel would snap at Malkah for talking too much, and so on. I think Miriam and I fought the most bitterly. While she insisted that we would return to Mizpah, or that at least she would, I kept saying that we should keep going.
“Why, Miriam?” I asked for the hundredth time. “It would be easy never to go back. Jephthah made this stupid vow to Yahweh, not you. You shouldn’t have to pay for it. If we don’t go back, you’ll live, and it’ll let Jephthah off the hook. All we have to do is keep going. I’ll come with you; we’ll all come with you. It doesn’t make sense to go back, Miriam. It doesn’t make sense!”
Miriam would gaze at me, sometimes with great patience, and later, with little. “I don’t have reasons, sister. At least not good ones, or any I can explain to you. I fear what would happen to my father if he broke his vow. It doesn’t make sense, you’re right. But sister, what are the odds of my surviving even if everything else were all right? If I did what people expected—got married, started having children? My own mother died doing that. I don’t even know if getting married, if having me, were things she chose for herself. At least this will be a choice . . . my choice.”
Questions for reflection
What choices do you think Miriam has? What do you think of the choices she has made? In this Lenten season, how will you attend to your choosing?
From Sacred Journeys © Jan Richardson
Etty’s quotations are from Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-1943. I was dismayed to discover just now that most of the available copies of this unabridged version of Etty’s writings are fantastically expensive. We need this back in print. An abridged version is available as Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork.
