Etty Hillesum's diary delineates a spiritual and ontological passage through her people's lethal time. In the following, I will structure her diary as a movement from separation to communitas. Employment in the Jewish Council delineates separation from her community; communitas represents a path to re-connect to her people and Judaism.

I Separation

Etty Hillesum follows her brother Jaap's advice to enter the Joodse Raad [Jewish Council], which she experiences as a separation for life or death, imagining clinging to a driftwood in the sea while pushing others away to drown. Her image refers to the socio-political cleft between the Jewish Council and the Jewish community. Joodse Raad board members and employees enjoyed privileges, protection, and exemptions for their families and themselves deprived from other Jews. Both concurrently during and in the wake of the Second World War, resentment and judgement of the Joodse Raad have been poignant. Whether as chief board members or as minor employees, it was felt that they had collectively, actively or passively, facilitated the deportations of their communities, galvanizing and withholding ominous information of their impending ordeal and discouraging or preventing Jews from hiding or resisting. Historically documented, however, Jewish Councils around Europe vacillated in their attitudes, ranging from receding, covert rescue actions to active resistance with peril to their lives; resistance to the Nazi regime meant arbitrary deportation or execution.