Session Five
from pages 253 - 256 (Amsterdam, December 1942) and pages 94-131 (March 1942 - late April 1942)
P. 253 Etty has been in Westerbork, but now she is in Amsterdam where she has been allowed to spend a little bit of time before heading back to the camp. She is writing to a friend who has asked her to describe Westerbork.
Drenthe is a province in the northeastern part of the Netherlands. It has been populated by humans for tens of thousands of years and once was among the most densely populated places of the area until about 4000 years ago. It is now a rural area with low population density. Westerbork camp in Drenthe was built to house Jewish refugees fleeing Germany right before WW2 broke out. The Germans captured it and turned it into a transit camp for Jewish prisoners.
The Maginot Line was an elaborate French defense system built in France to deter German invasion. Etty was told that the bunk beds at Westerbork came from the Maginot Line bunkers.
She writes that a chief characteristic of Westerbork is that it is uncommonly crowded. Everything has been taken from the people imprisoned behind the barbed wire in the camp except one thing, that is, “whatever they can find within them - there is nothing else.”
Etty writes that she could tell her friend a story about Westerbork “filled with hatred and bitterness and rebellion.” But she chooses not to do so. She does not however intend that her lack of hatred is to be taken as complicity or the “absence of moral indignation.” She knows that “those who hate have good reason to do so.”
What she’s learned at Westerbork and through all of the war so far is that hatred does not help in any way. Only love will make the world habitable again. This section is perhaps the most clear and brilliant expression of Etty’s awakening in the whole book. She has found transcendent inner peace and she is radiant with love and the obscure, humble wisdom of the mystics.
Page 94 Etty is in her room in Amsterdam in the house she shares with several others. It is late at night and she notes with sadness that the branches on the two trees outside of her window have been “lopped off.” She must have seen the trimming as it was happening b/c she notes that as the branches were being cut she became sentimental and deeply sad. “Then, she writes, I suddenly knew: I should love the new landscape, too, love it in my own way.” She is developing an inner peace that is not dependent upon exterior circumstances. The trees become important characters in the next stretch of the diary.
Pages 99 -105 Etty is wrestling in the best, most productive way with how she interacts with all the people around her, especially those with whom she is close. Her inner work is really taking off, so how does she continue to relate in a kind and gracious way to those around her who are not seeking to go deep in their own inner and spiritual way? She is sorting that out and seems to be deciding that she must be gentle with everyone. Most people are not ready for the deep dive and her call is to be helpful above all and not condescending. She has her trees. Her “two gaunt ascetics” as she calls them fondly. They seem to be symbols for her, teachers in a way, of how to be fully present no matter the circumstances. They continue to interact with the stars and reach for the wide open sky above their slender, suffering trunks. She writes on the bottom of 105 “is there indeed anything as intimate as man’s relationship with God?”
All throughout this section Etty is wrestling with the fact that she is in intimate, physical relationships with two men. One can’t help but wonder if the two trees, her “two gaunt ascetics”in some way symbolize the two men, Han and S. Both men are much older than she. In Han she finds comfort in a paternal sense, and in S. she finds deep romance. In the end she will give herself spiritually to S. It strikes one that Etty finds S. to be something akin to her soulmate. These entanglements are catalysts for her growth.
Page 109 middle of the page - Etty kneels to pray. She prays that God will not let her waste even a drop of her energy on anxiety and fear or on hatred for the German soldiers drilling nearby.
Middle of page 114 - Etty is hard at work on the dismantling of her false self. “I must be even more collected and peaceful inside, for if I am not then everything gets dissipated in vanity and play acting.”
Page 119 middle of the page - Etty seems to be in a stretch of unsettledness. As happens to writers and artists she can’t get traction with her work. She is growing spiritually and emotionally. She is growing out of some old habits. “My old asperity is gone.” But she has yet to fully grow into her new habits and artistic inclinations. It’s all happening right on time as her journey unfolds.
Page 122 she writes beautifully and clearly about not projecting our own bad moods onto others.
Pages 122 - 124 Etty is in love with S and committed to Han. She should be divided between these two romantic and physical entanglements but she is not, or is she? Her romantic endeavors keep turning her toward a deep love for all people and indeed all creation.
Page 126 The yellow star has been issued and Etty has now become convinced of two things: one, she is committed to S though she does not want to marry him, nor long painfully for him. Two, she is not frightened of anything because of the infinite richness of the inner life.
Page 128 - Etty realizes there are two versions of the reality they are living that could be told. One, the story is full of terror and death. Two, the story is about a life that is beautiful, unshakably gorgeous, in spite of the terror.
Page 129 - She wonders if she is being too congenial b/c she is not yet affected to an extreme degree by the German measures. She determines that she is not. All suffering is one suffering and our indignation at it must not simply be a projection of one’s own inner dissatisfaction. Likewise all love is one love. Etty is working all of this out in real time…she is not completely clear but sums up what is happening by writing “Something in me is growing.” Top of 131.