Introduction

My article is inscribed in a kind of a triangle: a possible connection between Etty Hillesum, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), and the Gospel of Matthew, specifically 6:25-34 where Jesus speaks of the birds of the heavens and the lilies of the fields. This passage must have touched Etty Hillesum as she was attuned to nature as God's creation, and especially to flowers. Reflecting, for example, on her roses that went on quietly blossoming in Amsterdam while she was in Camp Westerbork, she wrote, “Many say, ‘How can you still think of flowers!’”

But how was Etty Hillesum's attention drawn to Matthew's parable? Could it be that she found “the birds of the heavens and the lilies of the fields” in Kierkegaard's edifying discourses on Matthew 6? This is the basic query that I shall try to answer.

In fact, we do not know if Etty Hillesum had read anything of Kierkegaard's work. If she had, we do not know which passages nor how intensively she may have focused on them. There are only four occurrences where she even mentioned Kierkegaard in Het Werk, and these references to the Danish philosopher were quite unspecific, often inside of a list of several authors.