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 [May 30, 1942], 7:30 a.m.
Yes, what was it like last night in my little room? I had gone to bed early, and from my bed I looked out through my large open window. It seemed, once again, that Life, with all its secrets, was close to me, that I could touch it. I felt as if I were resting against the bare chest of life and could hear the soft, steady beat of its heart. I was lying between the naked arms of life and I was safe there, under cover. And I thought, "How strange! This is war. There are concentration camps. Small cruelties are added to other cruelties. As I walk through the streets, I can tell from many of the houses I pass on my way: here a son is in prison, there the father is being held hostage, here again an 18-year-old son is being sentenced to death. And these streets and houses are all around me. I know the stalked air of the people, the human suffering that keeps piling up, I know the persecution, the oppression, the arbitrariness, the impotent hatred and all that sadism. I know all this and I keep looking deep into the eyes of the smallest fragment of reality that imposes itself on me. - And yet, when I cease to be on my guard and surrender to myself, there I suddenly am resting against the bare chest of life, and its arms embracing me are so gentle and protective, and the beating of its heart I cannot even begin to describe: so slow, so steady, so gentle, almost muffled, but so faithful, strong enough never to cease, and at the same time so good, so merciful." -
This is, once and for all, my feeling about life and I believe that no war in the world, no human cruelty, no matter how absurd, can change that.
p. 541
Monday [June 29, 1942], 10 a.m.
God is not accountable to us, it is the other way around. I know how much more there is to come. I am now separated from my parents without being able to join them, even though they live only two hours away by train. But I know that they live in a comfortable house, are not hungry and are surrounded by many good people. And they too know where I am. But the time may come when I will no longer know where they are, when they will have been deported, when they will die in distress, as so many others are dying in distress today. I know that time may come. The last I heard, all the Jews in Holland are going to be deported to Poland, via Drenthe. English radio revealed that since April of last year, 700,000 Jews have been killed in Germany and the occupied territories. And if we survive, these are the wounds we will have to carry with us for the rest of our lives.
And yet I don't find life absurd, God, I can't help it. And God does not have to account for the follies we commit, it is up to us to account for them! I have already suffered a thousand deaths in a thousand concentration camps, I know everything, no new information distresses me any more. Somehow, I already know everything. And yet I find this life beautiful and rich in meaning. Every moment of it. And until the last minute, I will sit at this desk and continue to believe in every poem I read - a student - he is coming –
p. 636