ETTY HILLESUM DIED IN AUSCHWITZ ON 30 NOVEMBER 1943

Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943 and Letters from Westerbork, Translated from the Dutch by Arnold J. Pomerans, Foreword by Eva Hoffman, and Introduction and notes by Jan G. Gaarlandt (New York: Henry Holt, 1996) ("We know little about Etty's life before the war. Esther--her official first name--was born on 15 January 1914 in Middelburg...." Id. at xv. From a diary entry, from Amsterdam, dated 18 December 1942: "I know that those who hate have a good reason to do so. But why should we always have to choose the cheapest and easiest way? It has been brought home forcibly to me here how every atom of hatred added to the world makes it an even more inhospitable place. And I also believe, childishly perhaps but stubbornly, that the earth will become more habitable again only through the love that the Jew Paul described to the citizens of Corinth in the thirteen chapter of his first letter." Id. at 256. From a letter dated 10 July 1943: "This is something people refuse to admit to themselves: at a given point you can no longer do, but can only be and accept. And although that is something I learned a long time ago, I also know that one can only accept for oneself and not for others, And that's what is so desperately difficult for me here. Mother and Mischa still want to 'do,' to turn the whole world upside down, but I know we can't do anything about it. I have never been able to 'do' anything; I can only let things take their course and if need be, suffer. This is where my strength lies, and it is a great strength indeed. But for myself, not for others." Id. at 314. "Etty Hillesum died in Auschwitz on 30 November 1943." Id. at 365.).