ettyhillesum

[ettyhillesum]

He assigned their proper places to all the things that went on inside me; it was like a jigsaw puzzled, all the pieces were mixed up and he put them together properly. How he did it I can't tell, but it's his business after all, his profession, and people know what they're talking about when they speak of his 'magical personality.'

page 31

[ettyhillesum]

All I felt was wretchedly unhappy and lonely -- I realize why now -- and all I wanted was to get away from him and to write. I think I know what all the 'writing' was about as well: it was just another way of 'owning,' of drawing things in more tightly to oneself with words and images...And this grasping attitude, which is the best way I have of describing it, suddenly fell away from me. A thousand tyrannical chains were broken and I breathed freely again and felt strong and looked about with shining eyes.

page 30

[ettyhillesum]

But that night, only just gone, I reacted quite differently. I felt that God's world was beautiful despite everything, but it's beauty now filled me with joy. I was just as front moved by the mysterious, still landscape in the dusk as I might have been before, but somehow I no longer wanted to own it. I went home invigorated and went back to work [writing]. And the scenery stayed with me, in the background, as a cloak about my soul, to put it poetically for once, but it no longer held me back: I no longer 'masturbated' with it.

page 29

[ettyhillesum]

Whenever I saw a beautiful flower, what I longed to do with it was press it to my heart, or eat it all up. It was more difficult with a piece of beautiful scenery, but the feeling was the same. I was too sensual, I might almost write too greedy. I yearned physically for all I thought was beautiful, wanted to own it. Hence that painful longing that could never be satisfied, the pining for something I thought unattainable, which I called my creative urge. I believe it was this powerful emotion that made me think I was born to produce great works.

page 28

[ettyhillesum]

Everything looks so clear-cut and ugly, which is why it is so unpleasant to discuss politics in the present climate and why I felt that sudden urge to fling myself at S., an oasis in the desert.

page 27

[ettyhillesum]

I have recently made it my business to preserve harmony in this household of so many conflicting elements: a German woman, a Christian of peasant stock, who has been a second mother to me; a Jewish girl student from Amsterdam; an old, level-headed social democrat, Bernard the Philistine, with his pure heart and fair intellect, but limited by his background; and an upright young economics student, full of gentleness and sympathetic understanding but also with the kind of Christian militancy and rectitude we have become accustomed to in recent times. Ours was and is a bustling little world, so threatened by politics from outside as to be disturbed within. But it seems a worthy task to keep this small community together as a refutation of all those desperate and false theories of race, nation, and so on.

page 26

[ettyhillesum]

I had a liberating thought which surfaced in me like a hesitant, tender young blade of grass thrusting its way through a wilderness of weeds: if there were only one decent German, then he should be cherished despite that whole barbaric gang, and because of that one decent German it is wrong to pour hatred over an entire people. That doesn’t mean you have to be half-hearted; on the contrary, you must make a stand, wax indignant at times, try to get to the bottom of things. But indiscriminate hatred is the worst thing there is. It is a sickness of the soul. Hatred does not lie in my nature. If things were to come to such a pass that I began to hate people then I would know that my soul was sick and I should have to look for a cure as soon as possible.

page 25

[ettyhillesum]

The desire to prolong static moments is misplaced. It's understandable, of course: you long for an hour's moving spiritual or 'soulful' experience, even if it is followed by the inevitable jolt as you come down to earth again. Such jolts used to annoy me, I would be overcome with fatigue, and pine for more of those exalted moments...I don't like putting in the daily grind [of writing]. And I'm not really sure of my own talent; it doesn't really feel like an organic part of me. In near-ecstatic moments I think myself capable of God knows what, only to sink back again into the deepest pit of obscurity.

page 24

[ettyhillesum]

Of course you must hold on to your forebodings and your intuitions. They are the sources upon which you draw, but be careful not to drown in them. Just organize things a little, exercise some mental hygiene. Your imagination and your emotions are like a vast ocean from which you wrest small pieces of land that may well be flooded again. That ocean is wide and elemental, but what matter are the small pieces of land you reclaim from it.

page 23

[ettyhillesum]

You've just got to work, and that's that. No fantasies, no grandiose ideas and no earth-shattering insights. Choosing a subject and finding the right words are much more important. And that is something I have to learn and for which I must fight to the death:?all fantasies and dreams shall be ejected by force from my brain and I shall sweep myself clean from within, to make space for real studies, large and small. It's the same with sex. If someone makes an impression on me, I can revel in erotic fantasies for days and nights on end. I don't think I ever realized how much energy that consumes, and how much it is bound to detract from any real contact.

page 22

[ettyhillesum]

The day began so well, with my head bright and clear, and I made up my mind to write it all down later. But later came a really bad fit of depression, an inescapable pressure in my skull and gloomy thoughts, much too gloomy to bear for long, and behind it all the emptiness of my quest; but that's something else I shall have to fight.

page 21

[ettyhillesum]

All my life I had had the feeling that, for all my apparent self-reliance, if someone came along, took me by the hand and bothered about me, I would be only too eager to deliver myself up to his care. And there he was now, this complete stranger, this S. with his complicated face.

page 20

[ettyhillesum]

There were many attractive women and girls at his lecture. I was touched by the almost palpable love he was shown by several 'Aryan' girls -- he, the Jew who had fled from Berlin, who had to come all the way from Germany to help them to inner peace.

page 19

[ettyhillesum]

Second impression: intelligent, incredibly wise age-old grey eyes, which drew one's attention from the full mouth, but not for long or altogether. I was awed by his skill, his ability to read my deepest conflicts from my second face: my hands. There was an oddly disagreeable moment, when my attention slipped, and I thought he was referring to my parents, when, in fact, he meant me: 'philosophically and intuitively gifted,' he said, and more in the same vein. He spoke as one might when giving sweets to a small child. 'Happy now? Look, here you are, you've got all these marvelous qualities, so why aren't you happy now?' I felt an instant dislike, a sense of humiliation, though it was probably only my aesthetic feelings that were hurt. Anyway, I thought he was pretty odious just then. But later those marvelously human eyes, sizing me up out of grey depths, rested again on my own. I would dearly have liked to kiss those eyes.

page 18

[ettyhillesum]

SUNDAY, 9 MARCH [1941]: Here goes, then. This is a painful and well-nigh insuperable step for me: yielding up so much that has been suppressed to a blank sheet of lined paper. The thoughts in my head are sometimes so clear and so sharp and my feelings so deep, but writing about them comes hard. The main difficulty, I think, is a sense of shame. So many inhibitions, so much fear of letting go, of allowing things to pour out of me, and yet that is what I must do if I am ever to give my life a reasonable and satisfactory purpose. It is like the final, liberating scream that always sticks bashfully in your throat when you make love.

page 17

[ettyhillesum]

Radio, television, press, everybody agreed: Etty Hillesum's diary is a substantial document. Her personality invites the reader to follow her thoughts and feelings, she even heals old wounds and her writings are a living inspiration. Churches, schools, discussion groups and thousands of lay readers use the book as a Vademecum.

page 15

Vademecum: a handbook or guide that is kept constantly at hand for consultation.

[ettyhillesum]

In the end I was convinced I was about to publish one of the most important documents of our time.

page 14