Agency als antwoord van Etty Hillesum op het nazisme: Een onderzoek naar eigenaarschap in haar dagboeken en brieven. Westerbork-Amsterdam 1941-1943

Abstract

Etty Hillesums choice not to go into hiding and go voluntarily to the transit camp Westerbork played a crucial role in the judgement of her person and led to controversy in the perception of the diarist. Etty received recognition and admiration, but there was also criticism. The critique mainly focused on her attitude towards persecution and the coming annihilation. The idea that Jews had passively suffered their fate was dominant in the early historiography of Jewish victimization. The behavior of the Jews was described as fatalistic, self-destructive and corrupt and, in particular, the establishment of the Jewish Councils set up by order of the Nazis in the occupied territories was highly criticized. This perception has been largely corrected and nuanced. Various researchers have shown that the victims of Nazism were by no means passive recipients of their fate, but active actors with agency. In this study, I define agency as (re)taking and maintaining control over one's own life, ownership over life. Several aspects of agency emerge in Etty's texts. Using the concept of agency, it is possible to gain insight into the development of her choice not to go into hiding, but to go to Westerbork, and how she managed to give meaning to her fate during her stay in the transit camp. Etty decided not only that she wanted to share her fate, "Massenschicksal", as she described it, but also how she would give shape and meaning to that fate.