ETTY HILLESUM AND THE GREAT PROTECTIVE HAND
We are held during each of the moments of our lives.
It is important to know this being held.
It is important to accept this acceptance.
Etty Hillesum, who died at Auschwitz on November 30, 1943,
knew of what I speak.
Sixteen months earlier, on July 20, 1942, a determined witness
to the Holocaust, she wrote in her diary
“there is only one way of preparing for the new age,
by living it even now in our hearts.”
“And I am so grateful to You,” she added six days hence,
“for leaving me so free of bitterness and hate,
with so much calm acceptance,
which is not at all
the same as defeatism…”
“There are moments,” she declared two days later,
“when I feel like a little bird, tucked away
in a great protective hand.”
It is important to know this being held.
It is important to accept this acceptance.
Text copyright © 2020 Patrick S. Wolfe
All rights reserved. Short segments may be quoted with due attribution.
An author and historian, Patrick Wolfe lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.