Living in “Dark Times”

There is a deep contrast between our times and those when Etty Hillesum and Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived. We cannot classify our epoch as peaceful, yet the Western world is not directly engaged in the terrible events that can occur on our planet – most of them right now coming to us only via TV news or in newspapers. Hillesum and Bonhoeffer directly suffered the consequences of what Hannah Arendt called “Dark Times” – a painful period when the majority of the values conquered after centuries were neglected and contradicted and where people were not able to plan for the future. But Etty Hillesum and Dietrich Bonhoeffer succeeded in surpassing their destiny, showing us that in the bleakest places and situations, light was possible and hope could be maintained.

Both were victims of Nazism but the testimonies of their lives in dark times are quite different. Etty Hillesum's diaries and letters were not intended to be published. Their register was informal, revealing someone who was compelled to share her feelings and experiences with no presumption of making history or writing literature, philosophy, or theology. She died at the age of twenty-nine.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a renowned German theologian who resisted the Nazi dictatorship and became a founding member of the Confessing Church.