Living It

First and foremost, you must listen to your own rhythm, and

try to live in accordance with it. Be attentive to what emerges

from deep down. Often, our actions are only imitations,

fulfillment of an assumption of duty, or a reflection

of what we believe a human being "should" be.

But the only certainty we may have about our life

and our deeds can only spring from the depth of our being.

I know that a new and kinder day will come,

and I would like so much to live on,

if only to express all the love I carry within me.

And there is only one way to prepare the new age,

by living it even now in our hearts.

We must be willing to act like a balm for all wounds.

Etty Hillesum, beautywelove.blogspot.com, July 19, 2019

Etty Hillesum was a Dutch author whose diaries of the early 1940's record the increasing anti-Jewish measures imposed by the occupying German army and her growing anxiety about the fate of fellow Jews who had been deported by them. On September 7, 1943, the family was deported to Auschwitz. Etty's parents are recorded as having died on September 10, suggesting that they either died in transit or were gassed immediately upon arrival. Her brother Mischa was moved to the Warsaw Ghetto where he died before March 31, 1944. Etty Hillesum died in Auschwitz on November 30, 1943.