Etty Hillesum - The Diaries

The Diaries

Before her final departure for Westerbork, Etty gave her Amsterdam diaries to Maria Tuinzing, who had meanwhile come to live in the house on the Gabriel Metsustraat as well. Etty asked her to pass them along to the writer Klaas Smelik with the request that they be published if she did not return. In 1946 or 1947, Maria Tuinzig turned over the exercise books and a bundle of letters to Klaas Smelik. His daughter Johanna (Jopie) Smelik then typed out sections of the diaries, but Klaas Smelik's attempts to have the diaries published in the 1950s proved fruitless. Two letters Etty had written, in December 1942 and on 24 August 1943, concerning conditions in Westerbork, did get published. They appeared in the autumn of 1943 in an illegal edition by David Koning at the recommendation of Etty's friend Petra (Pim) Eldering. This edition, with a run of one hundred copies, was printed by B. H. Nooy of Purmerend under the title Drie brieven van den kunstschilder Johannes Baptiste van der Pluym (1843–1912) . The two letters were preceded by a foreword with a biography of the artist and followed by a third letter, both written by David Koning to camouflage the true contents. The revenues from the publication were used to provide assistance to Jews in hiding. These letters have since been republished on several occasions.

In late 1979, Klaas A.D. Smelik, now director of the EHOC, Ghent University, approached the publisher J. G. Gaarlandt with a request to publish the diaries left to him by his father, Klaas Smelik. This resulted in the publication in 1981 of Het verstoorde leven (An Interrupted Life) and in 1986 of all Etty Hillesum's known writings in Dutch. Of this Dutch edition there is now present a complete English translation. This new publication is, in Horatius' words, "a monument more lasting than bronze" to this woman who, along with so many others, fell victim to what many consider to be the greatest crime of the 20th century. An Interrupted Life was republished in 1999 by Persephone Books.