The Dutch Carmelite priest and professor of philosophy, Titus Brandsma, was one of the public personalities in The Netherlands who dared to openly resist the National Socialist ideology of Hitler’s Germany. He insisted on the freedom of the Catholic press to refuse to print Nazi propaganda. Fr. Titus was duly arrested on January 20, 1942, and spent time in several prisons and concentration camps until his death in Dachau on July 26, 1942. In spite of the difficult circumstances during his imprisonment, he continued to write as far as it was possible.

In this volume, we present all his writings during the last six months of his life. These comprise

– a reply to an official question posed to him by his captors
– personal notes reflecting his situation, his feelings and his hope
– consolatory sayings he remembered in this dark times
– a timetable that he gave himself in order to cope with the lonely days
– reviews on two books that he had taken with him
– a biography on Teresa of Avila which he had wanted to write for a long time
– a Way of the Cross for the new stations in Dokkum
– two poems
– notes for lectures on Geert Grote and John Brugman

– a petition to the German Sicherheitsdienst

During this time, Titus Brandsma also wrote eight letters to his family, confrères, colleagues and collaborators which we already published in vol. 2 of this series: Letters to the Family.