Etty Hillesum - Fundamental Trust
Les écrits d'Etty Hillesum. Journaux et lettres 1941-1943 (The writings of Etty Hillesum. Diaries and letters 1941-1943. Complete edition). Paris: Seuil, 2008, 1081 p.
Saturday morning [December 20, 1941], 10 a.m.
It is maturing very slowly in me, lately, a "surrender", a really great trust. A sense of being safe in your hand my God. I am no longer so often cut off from that deep undercurrent within me. When I am in a wild and exuberant mood, it is not forced or unbridled, but based on the certainty of that current. I have also stopped continually bumping into the sharp edges of the day.
p. 287
I am so glad that he is Jewish and that I am Jewish myself. And here too, my efforts will be to stay close to him in order to get through this time together. And I will also tell him tonight: Deep down, I am not afraid of anything, I feel so strong; that the ground on which we sleep is a little harder or that we only have a few streets to move on instead of all of them, etc., etc., these are only gradual differences, all of this is so insignificant in front of the infinite richness and possibilities that we carry within us. Let's preserve and maintain them, let's remain faithful to them and keep our faith in them. And I will assist you and stay by your side, yet I will give you complete freedom and, later, I will give you up for the young woman you want to make your lawful wife. I will support you at every step, physically and internally, I believe that, little by little, I have matured enough to support a lot of hardness of the existence without hardening myself internally.
I feel so sure of myself, so free of fear and, in a way, so triumphant, so unbreakable, and also full of love and trust. And if the slightest hesitation, the slightest fear breaks through in you, I will be there for you, I will support you. An old dress, a few slices of bread, a bit of sunshine from time to time and a good look exchanged. A hand that is still there and that can caress. And work a little. Our work, we can do it always and everywhere, as long as there is a single human being around, even a camp guard. I'll come and find you in a moment. I have put on a lovely new little pink woolen shirt and washed myself from head to toe with lilac soap. I have sometimes complained in my heart that there is so little space for our physical love in your two little rooms, and otherwise no possibility of going anywhere together, because of all those no-go signs. And now they seem to me a paradise of possibilities and freedoms, your little room, your little lampshade, my lilac soap and your good caressing hands. God only knows what great freedom that is for us, measured against what may come. But I don't have any scary visions of the future either. We don't know how things might turn out. I don't project much into the future. But if things get tough for us, I am willing and prepared to deal with it.
p. 498-499
Monday, [June 8, 1942], evening
What I would have liked to write several days ago, under the effect of this small depression of short duration, without however managing to do it, as I do not manage to express anything of all that I would like to write:
I believe that this is a beginning and that, little by little, I am approaching this beginning: taking oneself seriously. Believing in yourself and believing that it makes sense to find your own shape. So often we walk away from ourselves - we see it and hear it constantly around us - with the justification, "Basically it doesn't matter," or, "There are so many important things going on in this world, it's still not the time to worry too much about myself." So there is still so much unused material in people that has not been processed, because they believe that this material, being theirs, is not worth the trouble. And they are fooled by the number, the diversity, the greater value and importance of the gifts and possibilities they believe they see in others. —
p. 558-559
July 11, 1942. Saturday morning, 11 o'clock
Many people accuse me of being indifferent and passive and claim that I give in without reacting. They say, "Anyone who has a chance to escape their clutches has a duty to take a chance." I must think of myself, they say. But their calculation is not correct. Everyone right now is busy thinking about themselves and trying to slip through the cracks; yet it is a large, very large number that must go. And the weird thing is that I don't feel like I'm in their clutches. Whether I stay here or get deported. It is such a conventional idea, so primitive, this reasoning does not touch me anymore, I do not feel under the clutches of anyone, I only feel in the arms of God - to say it with a little emphasis; whether here, at this dear, familiar desk, or in a month's time, squeezed into some bare room in the Jewish Quarter or perhaps working in a camp under the guard of the SS, I believe I will always feel in the arms of God. I may be physically broken, but that is all. And I may be in despair, I may have to endure hardships that even the most fertile imagination could not conceive. Yet all of this is small potatoes compared to my immense trust in God and my capacity for inner life. I may be underestimating what lies ahead. I live each day with the awareness of the terrible possibilities that can be realized at any moment for my little person, and that have already become the reality for many, too many people. I am aware of everything down to the smallest detail, I believe that in my "inner discussions" I keep my feet on the ground, on the hard soil of reality. My acceptance is neither resignation nor abdication of will. There is always room for the most elementary moral indignation before a regime that treats human beings in this way. But the events that beset us have taken on proportions that are too enormous, too demonic, for us to react with personal resentment or exacerbated hostility. This reaction seems to me to be childish, totally unsuited to the "fatal character» of the event. –
Often people get angry when I say, "It doesn't matter whether I or someone else leaves, what matters is that so many thousands of people have to leave?" It is not true that I want to go ahead of my annihilation with a smile of submission on my lips. It is not that either. It is the feeling of the inevitable, its acceptance and at the same time the conviction that in fact nothing can be taken away from us anymore. It is not a kind of masochism that would push me to want to leave absolutely, to want to be torn away from the foundations of my existence, but would I really be very happy to be able to escape the fate imposed on so many others? People say to me, "Someone like you has a duty to be safe, you still have so much to do in life, so much to give." But what I have or don't have to give, won't I be able to give wherever I am, here in a small circle of friends or elsewhere in a concentration camp? And it is singularly overestimating oneself to believe oneself too valuable to share with others a "mass fatality." And if God considers that I still have a lot to do, I will do it just as well after having gone through the same trials as the others. The human value in me or not will come out of my behavior in this entirely new situation. Even if I don't survive it, the way I die will provide an answer to the question: Who am I? It is no longer a question of staying out of a given situation at all costs, but rather of knowing how one reacts to any new situation, how one continues to live. What is reasonable for me to do, I will do. My kidneys continue to flutter and my bladder continues to act up, I will get a certificate, if possible. I am indeed recommended to take a small cover job at the Jewish Council. The Council hired no less than one hundred and eighty people last week, and now the desperate are flocking there in human clusters. It looks like a piece of wood floating on the vastness of the ocean after a shipwreck, where as many people as possible are trying to hang on. But it seems to me absurd and illogical to try this approach.
p. 677-679