HILLESUM Etty (Esther)

Biography:

Etty Hillesum obtained her master's degree in law, then studied Russian, her mother's mother tongue. She was forced to stop her studies when the Second World War broke out. She began keeping a diary (1941-1942), recounting the restrictions on the rights of Dutch Jews and the persecution that led to their deportation, as well as her own thoughts. From 1942 to 1943, she wrote letters from the Westerbork transit camp, where she chose to work on several occasions to provide moral support to those in transit to the concentration camps. She refused to escape in order to stay with them, and was herself deported with her entire family. She died in Auschwitz in 1943. Her writings bear witness to her spirituality, to how she sought to provide spiritual support for her fellow believers, and to the history of the Jews in the Netherlands in the face of Nazi atrocities. During those terrible years, she kept an unshakeable faith in mankind, despite the horrors he committed every day before her very eyes. Her immense love of life and her spiritual evolution brought her closer to Christianity, to the point of self-giving.