Etty Hillesum: (2) Family
Etty Hillesum, her parents, and her youngest brother all died in Aushwitz in late 1943 or early 1944. Another brother, Jaap, a brilliant doctor, died while being repatriated from Bergen-Belsen in 1945. The home environment was quite hostile and difficult but probably not as bleak as Patrick Woodhouse, a biographer, whose first chapter appears behind this link Etty Hillesum: A life transformed | Catholicireland.net escribes
The father and both sons all had difficulty coping with the so-called real world. Each was brilliant in his own field (Louis, a classics scholar, Jacob (Jaap), a doctor, and Mischa, a pianist), but the father had difficulty coping with students and life (he was also deaf and nearly blind) and both sons were institutionalized briefly for "mental problems." Other members of the family and the Hillesum's circle of friends were most worried about Mischa who seems quite fragile. The only specific behavior i discovered in the diary was his effort to approach the German commandant at Westerbork (detention camp) in order to inform him that he was a murderer since he (the commandant) seemed unaware of that fact. Woodhouse uses the word schizophrenic to describe Mischa. I think (but then i am obsessed with autism) that all the Hillesum men were autistic. But when i look at the brief glimpses given by Etty's letters, i see an intact family maintaining itself amazingly well under extreme circumstances. Some of this may be due to Etty's spiritual growth, but surely not all.
The reason i speak of her family is that Etty choose as her lovers men nearly her father's age: her 64 year old landlord (whom she called "father') and her 55 year old therapist, Julius Spier.
The father and both sons all had difficulty coping with the so-called real world. Each was brilliant in his own field (Louis, a classics scholar, Jacob (Jaap), a doctor, and Mischa, a pianist), but the father had difficulty coping with students and life (he was also deaf and nearly blind) and both sons were institutionalized briefly for "mental problems." Other members of the family and the Hillesum's circle of friends were most worried about Mischa who seems quite fragile. The only specific behavior i discovered in the diary was his effort to approach the German commandant at Westerbork (detention camp) in order to inform him that he was a murderer since he (the commandant) seemed unaware of that fact. Woodhouse uses the word schizophrenic to describe Mischa. I think (but then i am obsessed with autism) that all the Hillesum men were autistic. But when i look at the brief glimpses given by Etty's letters, i see an intact family maintaining itself amazingly well under extreme circumstances. Some of this may be due to Etty's spiritual growth, but surely not all.
The reason i speak of her family is that Etty choose as her lovers men nearly her father's age: her 64 year old landlord (whom she called "father') and her 55 year old therapist, Julius Spier.