It is all so ugly. … I would much rather join those who prefer to float on their backs for a while, drifting on the ocean with their eyes turned toward heaven, and who then go down with a little prayer. …it is not in my nature to tilt against the savage, cold-blooded fanatics who clamour for our destruction. … I am so calm it is sometimes as if I were standing on the parapets of the palace of history looking down over far-distant lands.
– Etty Hillesum, 14 July 1942, in An Interrupted Life, The Diaries, 1941-1943, p. 180
