Etty Hillesum: Difference between revisions

Before she left for Westerbork, Etty Hillesum gave her diaries to Maria Tuinzing, with the instruction they be passed to Klaas Smelik for publication, should she not survive.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/29/books/eros-god-and-auschwitz.html |title=Eros, God, and Auschwitz |last=Des Pres |first=Terrence |date=January 29, 1984 |publisher=[[The New York Times Book Review]] }}</ref> 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 {{lang|nl|Het verstoorde leven}} ({{gloss|An Interrupted Life}}), 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 transit camp|Westerbork]], where it was discovered by Dutch farmers after her death.<ref name=gratitude />{{rp|74}}<ref name="diary" />{{rp|360}}

 

[[David Brooks (commentator)|David Brooks]] sees Hillesum's ability to hold both intellectual skepticism yet humanitarian vulnerability in ''How to Stay Sane in Brutalizing Times''.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/02/opinion/sunday/resilience-bad-news-coping.html |title=How to Stay Sane in Brutalizing Times |last=Brooks |first=David |date=November 2, 2023 |work=[[The New York Times]] }}</ref>