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Edith Stein
Edith
Stein was born on October 12, 1891 in Breslau (Germany),
now Wroclaw, Poland. She died on August 9, 1942 in
Auschwitz, Poland.
Born into an Orthodox Jewish family, Edith Stein renounced
her faith in 1904 and became an atheist. As a
student at the University of Gottingen, she became acquainted with
Edmund Husserl and became interested in his philosophy. When Husserl
moved tot the University of Freiburg, he asked Edith Stein
to join him there as his assistant. She received her
doctorate in leading philosophers.
At Gottingen she first came into
contact with Roman Catholicism. Attracted to this faith, Edith Stein
returned on a holiday in 1921 to Breslau, where her
profound encounter with the autobiography of the mystic St. Theresa
of Avila caused her swift conversion. She was baptized on
January 1, 1922, and gave up her assistantship with Husserl
to teach at a Dominican girls' school in Speyer (1922
- 1932). While at Speyer she translated St Thomas Aquinas'
De veritate (On Truth) and familiarized herself with Roman Catholic
philosophy in general. In 1932 she became a lecturer at
the Institute for Pedagogy at Munster but, because of anti-semitic
legislation passed by the Nazi government, was forced to resign
the post in 1933.
In 1934 she entered the Carmelite
convent at Cologne, taking the religious name Teresa Benedicta of
the Cross. There she completed her metaphysical work 'Endliches und
ewiges Sein', an attempt to synthesize the diverse philosophies of
Aquinas and Husserl.
In 1938, with the Nazi threat growing,
she was transferred to the Carmelite convent at Echt in
the Netherlands. There she wrote her important treatise 'Studie uber
Joannes a Cruce: Kruezeswissenschaft'.
Removal from Germany, however, proved insufficient
to ensure her safety. On July 26, 1942 Adolf Hitler
ordered the arrest of all non-Aryan Roman Catholics. With her
sister Rosa, also a convert, Edith Stein was seized by
the Gestapo and shipped to the concentration camp at Auschwitz.
Survivors of the death camp testified that she helped all
other sufferers with great compassion. On August 9, 1942 she
was sent to the gas chamber, where she died with
her sister.
On May 1, 1987 she was beatified by
Pope John Paul II
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