"Born in Breslau, Germany, murdered in the Nazi death
camp of Auschwitz, Poland, Edith Stein dedicated her life to a
pursuit of truth leading from her roots in Judaism, via
adolescent agnosticism to the study of philosophy, to Catholicism
and ultimately to life as a Carmelite. She served God with
prayer, scholarship and dedication to her fellow human
beings, created in God's image.
In 1933, while others kept silent, she sought help from the Vatican for her beleaguered Jewish community, an Esther who pleaded for her people. In her writings she probed the meaning of suffering and reached for closeness to God.
She endured the indignities inflicted by her Nazi persecutors sustained by prayer and caring for the children around her.
With her older sister Rosa, she died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Edith Stein was beatified and declared a saint by Pope John Paul II."
Text by
Susanne M. Batzdorff
(Poet and Writer; niece of Edith Stein)