Letters from Westerbork (Pages 235 - 365) Summary and Analysis

This section is comprised of personal letters written by Etty Hillesum during her internment at Westerbork. The letters themselves differ from Etty diary entries in that they primarily address the desperation and immediacy of life in a concentration camp. Thousands of men, women, and children are interned at Westerbork; the area of which totals only one-half square kilometer. Sickness at the camp was rampant and Etty spent a good deal of time being ill while continuing her work for the Jewish Council there. Also, the letters chronicle the last few months of Etty's journey toward her inevitable death at the hands of the Germans.

Hillesum arrives at Westerbork in the summer of 1942. In a letter to the sisters of Dr. Herbert Kruskal, Etty describes in some detail the conditions under which she and...