Etty Hillesum.
What can we do in the face of so much suffering and evil in the world? Easter draws us to the deep inner well, the womb of Love, from which hope can spring. Roland Ashby reflects.
“Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.”[1]
These words were not written by a naïve sentimentalist, refusing to face reality. They were written by a young Jewish woman, Etty Hillesum, who died in Auschwitz in 1943.
Living amidst the terror, suffering and despair of the Nazi persecution and murder of the Jews, how could she have written such words? She writes:
There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there too … Dear God, these are anxious times … We must help You to help ourselves. And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of you, God, in ourselves.[2]
As we are daily reminded of the terror, suffering and despair faced by so many in the world, especially in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, perhaps that is all they, and we, can hope to do too – to safeguard that little piece of God in ourselves.
Priest and author, Richard Rohr writes, “If contemplation means anything, it means that we can ‘safeguard that little piece of You, God,’ as Etty Hillesum describes. What other power do we have now? All else is tearing us apart, inside and out.”[3]
Etty refused to hate her Nazi guards. “They, too, are human. One must try to understand them,” she says. “Every atom of hate we add to this world makes it still more inhospitable.”[4]
Rohr writes: “God cannot be born except in a womb of Love. So offer God that womb.”[5]
Jesus went to the Cross out of a womb of Love for each one of us, and in doing so, he showed us the greatest love the world has ever seen. It’s a love so powerful its light has radiated out across two millennia, burning bright in the darkness, and celebrated at Easter. It is a love that cannot be vanquished, and however implausible it may seem, has the power to transform.
Etty’s vision of God, of beauty, meaning and goodness survived in such a place of terror because she kept returning to the deep inner Well, to the Source, the womb of Love.
This is the Source, the womb of Love, through which Jesus was able to face the terrors of Crucifixion, and from which he was born anew on that first Easter Day.
“So when we remember Jesus and his self-gift,” theologian Sarah Bachelard says, “when we open our hearts, when we pray … we’re seeking to connect more deeply with him who is alive and still transmitting that empowering energy which is known within [believers] and felt by others as hope, love, freedom and courage. And what we discover is that from this connection new possibilities for being and acting arise.”[6]
Dr Bachelard concludes: “Given the scale of the evil now unleashed in our world, my question is, how will any response that does not issue from this deepening connection and power and love be adequate to the reality we face?”[7]
References:
[1] An Interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 (Persephone Books, London)
[2] Ibid.
[3] See: https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-deep-well-within/
[4] An Interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 (Persephone Books, London)
[5] See: https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-deep-well-within/
[6] From a sermon Dr Bachelard gave on 5 April at Benedictus Contemplative Church which is based in Canberra, Australia, but is also available online. See https://benedictus.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Redeeming-Sorrows-050425-website.pdf
[7] Ibid.