Abstract
Ies Spetter was one of Etty Hillesum's colleagues on the Jewish Council in Camp Westerbork. Like Hillesum, he was opposed to the ways in which the Amsterdam Jewish Council responded to the Nazis’ demands. Recently, a testimony by Spetter from the autumn of 1945 surfaced. It refers very briefly to his cooperation with Etty Hillesum in smuggling children out of Camp Westerbork. Spetter managed to survive, and his postwar activities show that to a great extent he and Hillesum shared the same views on life and humanity. This testimony may well mandate a shift in how we interpret what has until now been viewed as Hillesum's placid acceptance of her fate.
Keywords: Ies Spetter, resistance, Westerbork Camp, Etty Hillesum's refusal to seek hiding, humanism
In the reception of Etty Hillesum's work, her refusal to go into hiding is a recurring theme. For many, that choice is difficult to digest. In Jewish circles, especially, it has been met with a lack of understanding, sometimes bordering on indignation. This is understandable because Hillesum's deliberate choice to share the fate of her people, as she put it, could be considered an implicit denunciation of the many others who chose to go into hiding. And sometimes the denunciation was not only implicit; Etty Hillesum said as much to Klaas Smelik Senior, the friend who did everything he could to convince her to go into hiding,
It's the same with those Jews who go into hiding. They may say they’re doing it because they don't want to work for the G., but it's not nearly as heroic and revolutionary as that. All they are doing is using a highsounding excuse to dodge the fate they ought to be sharing with the rest.
Hillesum's refusal to go into hiding
Hillesum decided not to hide, and she also pressed others, like her friend Leonie Snatager, to report for Camp Westerbork instead of fleeing to a hiding place. Even without being aware of it, her attitude towards hiding affected the lives of those near her. The Mennonite pastor of Makkum, San van Drooge, who had been a student of Louis Hillesum, related that he, together with the resistance group C6, had devised a plan to smuggle the Hillesum family out of Amsterdam with the help of a reliable ferryman, so that they could go into hiding at his presbytery.