Session Ten
(pages 278-325 June-August 1943 Letters from Westerbork)
Etty continues her description of life in crowded Westerbork
Etty’s parents are in Westerbork, so she wants to stay with them, so she can be with them but also so she can protect them if possible with her Jewish Council privileges. It is striking how her stance toward them has changed since March of 1941. No doubt the context and her inner work have softened her attitude toward her family.
Taciturn - Etty finds that the people around her are carried away by a thousand worries about “irksome details.” Just keep the few big things in mind and the “rest can be quietly abandoned.” The few big things are that life is good and God is not at fault.
Etty’s brother Mischa is struggling with mental unease while her mother goes about spryly displaying an admirably positive attitude.
Etty continues to hope that Mischa and her parents don’t get sent to Poland on the train and that her other brother, Jaap, doesn’t come into Westerbork on the inbound train.
Etty still believes in God and what’s more she believes that “God is love.” “It’s truer now than ever,” she writes.
“The realms of the soul and the spirit are so spacious and unending that this little bit of physical discomfort and suffering really doesn’t matter all that much. I do not feel that I have been robbed of my freedom; essentially no one can do me any harm at all.”
The Jewish Council is losing its influence and is perhaps on the cusp of being disbanded.
“You must not think it presumptuous if we ask for impossible things; please remember it is due to ignorance.”
Etty is reading Meister Eckhart and sharing his writings with her father.
“The misery here is indescribable.”
Page 294 Etty’s father has a calm resignation to his fate very similar to hers.
“Against every new outrage and every fresh horror, we shall put up one more piece of love and goodness, drawing strength from within ourselves.”
July 1943 - Etty feels down and like she might like to pack her bag and sneak onto the next train to Poland. She fears she won’t be able to protect her parents much longer.
Etty is very afraid of seeing her parents suffer.
“Love for one’s fellow man is like an elemental glow that sustains you.”