Abstract

The article presents an essay discussing the personal experiences and writings of the Jewish-Dutch philosopher Etty Hillesum and her beliefs regarding the existence of God. These views are explored through the philosophical analysis of experience and symbolization developed by Eric Voegelin. Hillesum's particular experiences within the Jewish Holocaust as "Heaven" and "hell" are discussed in depth. In "The Range and Originality of conservative Reflection" Prof. Dr. R.V. Young writes: Only someone with a sense of the past can possibly know what is genuinely new in the present.Of course, it is the timeless that is always new. Meins Coetsier's essay on Etty Hillesum provides a rejoinder to the virulence of contemporary atheism not by meeting its arguments in their own terms, but by opening up a realm of experience that atheists simply ignore. The letters and diaries of this Dutch Jewish mystic and victim of Auschwitz provide a window into what may reasonably be described as a hell on earth, which paradoxically made available a vision of heaven. Grounding his analysis in Eric Voegelin's concept of symbolization, Coetsier makes an indirect case for the thoroughly conservative realization that human experience, particularly as the individual's insight converges with traditional symbols that embody generations of wisdom, always takes precedence over the naked reason of the deracinated ideologue