Edith Stein (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross)
A German Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun. She was martyred in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
- Contemporary era
- Germany
- Feast day August 9
- 1891 – 1942
- Martyr
- Virgin
- Nun
Edith Stein, born on October 12, 1891, in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) into a Jewish family, was a brilliant German philosopher. A disciple of Edmund Husserl, she earned her doctorate in philosophy. An atheist for a time, she converted to Catholicism in 1922 after reading the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Avila and was baptized on January 1, 1922. She taught in Speyer, then entered the Carmelite convent in Cologne in 1933, taking the name Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. In 1938, to escape Nazi persecution, she was transferred to the Carmelite convent in Echt, Netherlands. Arrested by the Gestapo on August 2, 1942, in retaliation for a letter from the Dutch bishops, she was deported and gassed at Auschwitz-Birkenau on August 9, 1942. She was beatified in 1987 and canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1998, and declared co-patroness of Europe in 1999.