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A Theology of Compassion
a Professional Development component for the
Chaplains |
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(The following passages are taken from the diary and letters of Etty Hillesum, written between 1941 and 1943. The ‘barracks’ referred to are Westerbork, a camp where Dutch Jews were gathered on their way to Auschwitz. In 1942 Etty voluntarily accompanied the first large group to be taken to Westerbork and stayed there, working in the hospital for over a year. Finally she was herself transported to Auschwitz where, on 30 November 1943, she died.)
8 OCTOBER, THURSDAY AFTERNOON. I am still sick. I can do nothing about it. I shall have to wait a little longer to gather up all their tears and fears. Though I can really do it here just as well, here in bed. Perhaps that’s why I feel so giddy and hot. I don’t want to become a chronicler of horrors. Or of sensations. This morning I said to Jopie, ‘It still all comes down to the same thing: life is beautiful. And I believe in God. And I want to be there, right in the thick of what people call ‘horror’ and still be able to say: life is beautiful.’ And now here I lie in some corner, dizzy and feverish and unable to do a thing. When I woke up just now I was parched, reached for my glass of water and, grateful for that one sip, thought to myself, ‘If I could only be there to give some of those packed thousands just one sip of water.’ And all the time I keep telling myself, ‘Don’t worry, not everything is that bad.’ Whenever yet another poor woman broke down at one of our registration tables, or a hungry child started crying, I would go over to them and stand beside them protectively, arms folded across my chest, force a smile for those huddled, shattered scraps of humanity and tell myself, ‘Really, not everything is that bad’. And all I did was just stand there, for what else could one do? (Etty: A Diary 1941-43, London: Grafton Books 1985, pp. 246-7)
22 SEPTEMBER. 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, seemed to grow lighter and brighter there? It is because I read the signs of the times and they did not seem meaningless to me. Surrounded by my writers and poets and the flowers on my desk, I loved life. And there among the barracks, full of hunted and persecuted people, I found confirmation of my love of life. Life in those draughty barracks was no other than life in this protected, peaceful room. Not for one moment was I cut off from the life I was said to have left behind. There was simply one great, meaningful whole. Will I be able to describe all that one day? So that others can feel too how lovely and worth living and just – yes, just – life really is? Perhaps one day God will give me the few simple words I need. And bright and fervent and serious words as well. But above all simple words. How can I draw this small village of barracks between heath and sky with a few rapid, delicate and yet powerful, strokes of the pen? And how can I let others see the many inmates, who have to be deciphered like hieroglyphs, stroke by stroke, until they finally form one great readable and comprehensible whole? One thing I know for certain: I shall never be able to put down in writing what life has spelled out for me in living letters. I have read it all, with my own eyes, and felt it with many senses. (Etty: A Diary, p. 229)
SATURDAY MORNING. Of course, it is our complete destruction that they want! But let us bear it with grace. There is no hidden poet in me, just a little piece of God that might grow into poetry. And a camp needs a poet, one who experiences life there, even there, as a bard and is able to sing about it. At night, as I lay in the camp on my plank bed, surrounded by women and girls gently snoring, dreaming aloud, quietly sobbing and tossing and turning, women and girls who often told me during the day, ‘We don’t want to think, we don’t want to feel, otherwise we are sure to go out of our minds,’ I was sometimes filled with an infinite tenderness, and lay awake for hours letting all the many, too many impressions of far too long a day wash over me, and I prayed, ‘Let me be the thinking heart of these barracks.’ And that is what I want to be again. The thinking heart of a whole concentration camp. I lie here so patiently and now so calmly again, that I feel quite a bit better already. I feel my strength returning to me; I have stopped making plans and worrying about risks. Happen what may, it is bound to be for the good. (Etty: A Diary, p. 245)
(For the last days of Edith Stein’s life we are dependent upon a number of eye-witnesses who either visited her at the transit camp Westerbork or survived the deportation. These accounts are therefore subjective, the first describing Edith Stein among the Jewish inmates and the second among her Catholic sisters. There were ten Jewish Catholic sisters imprisoned in Westerbork at this time. They had all been allocated to the same barracks, but were able to move among the other prisoners at certain times of the day. Edith Stein was transported with many others to Auschwitz on 7 August and died at Auschwitz on 9 August 1942).
It was Edith Stein’s complete calm and self-possession that marked her out from the rest of the prisoners. There was a spirit of indescribable misery in the camp; the new prisoners, especially, suffered from extreme anxiety. Edith Stein went among the women like an angel, comforting, helping, and consoling them. Many of the mothers were on the brink of insanity and had sat moaning for days, without giving any thought to their children. Edith Stein immediately set about taking care of these little ones. She washed them, combed their hair, and tried to make sure they were fed and cared for. (Julius Marcan, in Waltraud Herbstrith, Edith Stein: A Biography, trans. Bernard Bonowitz, San Francisco: Ignatius Press 1985, p. 183)
What distinguished Edith Stein from the rest of the sisters was her silence. Rather than seeming fearful, to me she appeared deeply oppressed. Maybe the best way I can explain it is to say that she carried so much pain that it hurt to see her smile. She hardly ever spoke; but often she would look at her sister Rosa with a sorrow beyond words. As I write, it occurs to me that she probably understood what was awaiting them. She was, after all, the only one who had escaped from Germany as a refugee, and this would have given her a much better idea of the situation than the Loebs had, who were still talking about going to work on the missions. As I say, in my opinion, she was thinking about the suffering that lay ahead. Not her own suffering — she was far too resigned for that — but the suffering that was in store for the others. Every time I think of her sitting in the barracks, the same picture comes to mind: a Pietà without the Christ. (Mrs Bromberg, Edith Stein: A Biography, pp. 182-3)
Once it became apparent that in a matter of hours she was going to be transported with the rest of the baptized Jews, I tried to find out whom I should notify. I wanted to know if there was some way I could be of service. Would it help, I asked, if I had a reliable policeman telephone Utrecht? With a smile, she asked me not to do anything. Why should there be an exception made in the case of a particular group? Wasn’t it fair that baptism not be allowed to become an advantage? If somebody intervened at this point and took away her chance to share in the fate of her brothers and sisters, that would be utter annihilation. But not what was going to happen now. (Mr Wielek, Edith Stein: A Biography, p. 187)
(The following passage is an informal communication of the Focolare Movement which dates from the year 1993 and the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina.)
I am Ivica Jurilj from Bosanski Brod in Bosnia… In my town the different ethnic groups always lived in peace together; most were Croats, then Serbs, Czechs and Hungarians. The relations between us were very good, we lived happily together, went to the same schools, helped each other out, played together, solved our problems together. . . I have five brothers in my family, and our parents always taught us to help others regardless of their nationality or religion which belongs to it. We had many fields which we had worked for generations, and agriculture was the family tradition. After the war broke out, the relations between the nationalities began to worsen, under the influence of the mass media. The situation started to become dangerous, many had chosen to leave their homes and to find more secure places, while the goods they left were at the mercy of thieves, who little by little took away everything they could. find. My parents, who had devoted themselves to farming all their lives and had acquired tractors and other kinds of machinery, could not bring themselves to leave everything. Also, they had no idea at all that the situation would worsen so very quickly. The older brothers, including myself, left while the younger ones remained. But then they too were forced to flee, taking refuge with some relatives in Slavone Brod. For months we heard nothing about our parents since all communications were down... We knew nothing about the fate of our parents and used every way to try to get information about them. After a few days, a Serb radio ham who was risking his life told us that they were alive and well. But then the counter attack happened and the occupiers destroyed everything as they left. During those days they killed my father too, while my mother managed to escape to a nearby wood. After spending two days there in great fear, with the body of my father at her side, she saw the arrival of the Croat army and decided to return to the village. She met the soldiers who asked her for information about the events that had happened, since she was the only survivor left in the village. They showed her a soldier who they had captured. He was a neighbour. They wanted her to accuse him, but she said: ‘For me he is a just a person, a friend from childhood of my children.’ She did not want to condemn him even at a moment of such tragedy... Soon after hearing of the death of our father, we left for the town where we grew up, and where we knew every corner, every tree and house.. . When we arrived we were terrified to see everything in such a state of ruin... Mother in her grief did not at first recognize us, especially since she thought that we were all dead. It has been difficult for us all to face reality, but what our mother did has helped us since in these terrible moments she managed not to condemn someone else. Her example has been a point of light in all this darkness. (Presentation given at the Family-Fest in Rome, 5 June 1993) _______________ Oliver Davies, A Theology of Compassion, “The Compassionate Self” 25-29 SCM Press, London: 2001 |
Three
Narratives
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