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Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew, died in Auschwitz on Nov 30 1943 at the age of 29. From the day she was required to wear a yellow star until the day she and her family were transported in a cattle car to the east she kept a meticulous diary of her inner life.
In the midst of suffering and injustice she felt one must hold fast to the encounter with God in one’s soul and in other people. The effort to preserve in one’s heart a spirit of love and forgiveness was the greatest task that any person could perform. This was her vocation.
Tho the world became a “giant concentration camp,” she continued to believe that life was meaningful. “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.”
She felt calling to to solidarity with those who suffer. It was not a vocation to suffering as such, but a calling to redeem the suffering of humanity from within, by safeguarding “that little piece of You, God, in ourselves.”
On Sept 7 1943 she and her family were transported east. From the train she tossed a card with the words, “we have left the camp singing.” Etty could not stop the Holocaust. But she left behind a witness to a force more powerful than death.
