Etty Hillesum

By Etty Hillesum,

Book cover of Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life And Letters From Westerbork

Book description

For the first time, Etty Hillesum's diary and letters appear together to give us the fullest possible portrait of this extraordinary woman in the midst of World War II.

In the darkest years of Nazi occupation and genocide, Etty Hillesum remained a celebrant of life whose lucid intelligence, sympathy, and…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Etty Hillesum as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Why include on this list the diaries of a secular Jewish woman who is in the grip of self-centered anxieties and an unusual, if not bizarre, relationship with her analyst? Because spiritual transformation begins and evolves in uncanny ways, leading one to find transcendence where one never would have expected it. Etty’s diaries and letters allow us to follow the process by which she became so profoundly lucid and open-hearted that she was able to see the humanity even in the Nazis organizing extermination.

From Jerome's list on spiritual breakthrough.

To derive a full perspective on the power of personal testimony, Hillesum’s diary and letters are an essential complement to the standard literature. Hillesum died in Auschwitz at age 29, having already lived the full life of a Dutch Jewish bohemian. Her brutally honest confrontations with feelings of inadequacy and self-betrayal form a unique backdrop to accounts from inside Hitler’s camps.

From Joshua's list on Holocaust testimony.

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Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

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