Abstract

Etty Hillesum, a young Dutch Jewish woman of twenty-seven, found an inner path to liberation, and “union with the ground of her being” in the face of the horror of her times, the Nazi genocide sweeping across Europe, which ultimately engulfed Etty Hillesum and her family in late 1943. This paper explores aspects of Etty Hillesum's process of transcending the evil and hatred in her time, which may be seen as a model for engaging the seemingly ubiquitous rise of nationalism, neo-fascism, and/or illiberalism throughout much of Europe and the United States in our time, and in a broader sense, the tension that exists between democratic and fascist principles, or open and closed systems in all times.

Keywords: transcendence of evil, rejection of hatred, contemporary nationalism, illiberalism, Carl Gustav Jung, Other

And then, it suddenly happened: I was able to feel the contours of these times with my fingertips. How is it that this stretch of heathland surrounded by barbed wire, through which so much human misery has flooded nevertheless remains inscribed in my memory as something almost lovely? How is it that my spirit, far from being oppressed seems lighter and brighter there? It is because I read the signs of the times and they did not seem meaningless to me…