AUGUSTA —The Holocaust & Human Rights Center of Maine will host a performance of Martin Steingesser’s “The Thinking Heart: The Life & Loves of Etty Hillesum” on Thursday, Aug. 9.

The piece, featuring two voices and one cello, is based on the journal and letters of Etty Hillesum, a Dutch woman who lived in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation and died in Auschwitz in 1943. It is an original arrangement of her journal and letters in the form of poems written by Steingesser.

The one-hour performance will begin at 7 p.m. at the center which occupies space with the library on the University of Maine at Augusta campus. 

Esther “Etty” Hillesum was a law student and working as a housekeeper in Amsterdam when she was summoned to the detention camp at Westerbork. To avoid the summons, she applied for a position on the Jewish Council. This permitted her to make several trips to visit family. She declined offers to go into hiding, opting instead to help prepare Jews for transport to other camps.

During this period, she wrote many entries in her diary. Prior to her final departure for Westerbork, she gave her diary to writer Klaas Smelick with instructions to publish it if she did not return. He tried unsuccessfully to do so in the 1950s. In 1981, Smelick’s son was able to get them published. Two years later, they were translated to English.

No one in Etty Hillesum’s family survived the Holocaust. Her life is remembered with the Etty Hillesum Research Centre at the University of Ghent and the Etty Hillesum Centre in Deventer, Holland.

Steingesser is the author of a book of poems, “Brothers of Morning,” and has performed and taught throughout Maine for 30 years. 

The performance will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Admission is free, with donations gratefully accepted. The performance is a part of the Holocaust & Human Rights Center’s 22nd annual Summer Seminar: Teaching the Nazi Holocaust, which runs from Aug. 6-10 at the center.