The Dutch Carmelite, philosophy professor and martyr Titus Brandsma wrote numerous letters and postcards to his family, a strikingly large number of which have survived. These letters and cards provide the reader with an interesting insight into his life and work. Through this correspondence, the nature of the relationships that Titus Brandsma maintained with the members of his family becomes visible. In addition, the reader gains first-hand knowledge of many personal, but also cultural, religious and professional experiences, thoughts and attitudes that Titus Brandsma told his family about in the course of his life. Furthermore, the reader becomes acquainted with an astonishingly wide private and professional network mentioned in the letters and cards, as well as with extensive and, for Brandsma’s time, unusual travelling.
In this volume, all preserved letters and cards are presented in chronological order and placed in their context. The correspondence to the family begins in 1895, at a time when the fourteen-year-old Titus was attending the Franciscan grammar school in Megen, and ends in 1942, when the sixty-one-year-old Titus was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp, where he died after a short stay. During all these years, Titus had intensive contact with his family, discussed all important family matters with his parents and siblings, took part in joys and sorrows, advised his family on difficult decisions and also repeatedly wrote extensively about himself and what was on his mind.