Etty Hillesum: A Life Transformed

By Patrick Woodhouse

Book Overview

On 8 March 1941, a 27-year-old Jewish Dutch student living in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam made the first entry in a diary that was to become one of the most remarkable documents to emerge from the Nazi Holocaust. Over the course of the next two and a half years, an insecure, chaotic and troubled young woman was transformed into someone who inspired those with whom she shared the suffering of the transit camp at Westerbork and with whom she eventually perished at Auschwitz. Through her diary and letters, she continues to inspire those whose lives she has touched since. She was an extraordinarily alive and vivid young woman who shaped and lived a spirituality of hope in the darkest period of the twentieth century. This book explores Etty Hillesum's life and writings, seeking to understand what it was about her that was so remarkable, how her journey developed, how her spirituality was shaped, and what her profound reflections on the roots of violence and the nature of evil can teach us today.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1472972139
• ISBN13: 9781472972132
• Release Date: May 2019
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Continuum
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

a good introduction for those new to Etty Hillesum's work

The selection of Etty Hillesum's journal, "Interrupted Life," is an adopted text for many undergraduate literature and religion courses. Those new to Hillesum have difficulty getting past her sexual proclivities and her somewhat bizarre behavior in regard to her mentor, Spier. Unfortunately, this prevents many from really finding the beauty and brilliance of this remarkable woman and her transformation from a confused girl to a deeply spiritual, compassionate woman. This book is an excellent bridge that allows the new reader to move on from Etty's early chaotic life to her profoundly moving transformation. Written in clear easy-to-follow prose, Woodhouse's book gives us the background to her life and the conditions in which she lived. He offers excellent examples of her best writing and takes us step-by-step through her spiritual transformation in a respectful and lovely way. Even though I have studied Etty Hillesum's work extensively and have read other academic books and articles about her work, I really enjoyed the way Woodhouse enhanced her experience and our experience with Etty with such careful detail. For those who teach Etty's work, I would suggest Woodhouse's book as good background to what life was like in pre-Nazi Amsterdam where this remarkable woman wrote one of the best journals of spiritual transformation ever.