This afternoon I was resting on my bunk and suddenly I just had to write these few words in my diary, and I now send them to you: ‘You have made me so rich, Oh God, please allow me to share out with full hands. My life has been transformed, in a con-tinuous dialogue with you, my God, one great dialogue. Sometimes, when I stand in some corner of the camp, my feet planted on your soil, my face turned toward your heaven, tears sometimes run down my face, tears of my emotion and inner gratitude looking for a way to express itself. At night, too, when I lie in bed and rest in you, my God, tears of gratitude run down my face, and that is my prayer. (1050)

Etty Hillesum,
in a letter to her friend, Henny Tideman,
written on August 18, 1943.