een project van Emma Sham-Ba Ayalon en Dina Awwad-Srour

Annie Schalkwijk: “De impact van de council was groot. Liefde, respect, een grondeloos vertrouwen in de kracht en schoonheid van leven, wat er ook gebeurt: dat konden we weer opnieuw ervaren.”

100 kaarten met citaten uit het werk van Etty Hillesum, in het Engels, Hebreeuws en Arabisch vertaald, in een box met een boekje met uitleg. 

Emma Sham-Ba Ayalon schrijft over de luistercirkel tijdens de bearing witness-retraite in Westerbork: “Dina and I hold a circle during retreat for the participants of the retreat with cards that we created. These are 100 cards with quotes by Etty Hillesum in English Hebrew and Arabic. Each participant takes a card and reflects on the relevance of the quote for his or her life. The magic is in the air and deep intimacy is created. Etty is speaking with us and awakens our inner voice.

I do feel that we bring her back to life with those simple cards and the possibility of people and groups to take her words into their own inner work. I recall a quote by Etty in which she wishes that if she will not survive somebody else will continue from where her life were cut short. This is one of the most touching paragraphs in her diary. I pray to be worthy of this mission:

‘Living and dying, sorrow and joy, the blisters on my feet and the jasmine behind the house, the persecution, the unspeakable horrors — it is all as one in me, and I accept it all as one mighty whole and begin to grasp it better if only for myself; without being able to explain to anyone else how it all hangs together. I wish I could live for a long time so that one day I may know how to explain it, and if I am not granted that wish, well, then somebody else will perhaps do it, carry on from where my life has been cut short. And that is why I must try to live a good and faithful life to my last breath: so that those who come after me do not have to start all over again, need not face the same difficulties. Isn’t that doing something for future generations?’ (3 July 1943) “

Meer over de Etty Hillesum kaarten is te vinden op: https://emmashamba.wixsite.com/ettyhillesum. Je kunt de box met kaarten bestellen. Neem contact met Het Etty Hillesum Centrum in Deventer, coordinator@ettyhillesumcentrum.nl