We, the comrades of Unit 1012, will
remember Edith Stein, also known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, every
year on August 9, as it is her feast day. We remember her as a victim of the
Holocaust during World War II. We will post information about her from
Wikipedia.
The stamp honoring Edith Stein, which was
issued in 1983 by the German Postal Service
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Religious
and martyr
|
|
Born
|
October
12, 1891
Breslau, Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire (now Wrocław, Poland) |
Died
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August
9, 1942 (aged 50)
Auschwitz concentration camp, Nazi-occupied Poland |
Honored
in
|
Roman
Catholicism
|
1 May
1987, Cologne,
Germany
by Pope Saint John Paul II
|
|
Canonized
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11
October 1998, Vatican City by Pope Saint John Paul II
|
Yellow Star of
David on a Discalced Carmelite nun's habit, flames,
a book
|
|
Controversy
|
Edith
Stein, also known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, OCD
|
Occupation
|
Discalced Carmelite nun, spiritual theologian,
and philosopher
|
Nationality
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German
|
Alma mater
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Schlesische
Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, University of
Göttingen
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Genre
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Phenomenology
|
Subject
|
|
Notable works
|
|
Edith Stein, also known as St.
Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, OCD (German: Teresia
Benedicta vom Kreuz,
Latin: Teresia Benedicta a Cruce) (12 October 1891 – 9
August 1942), was a German Jewish philosopher who converted to the Roman
Catholic Church and became a Discalced Carmelite nun. She is a martyr and saint
of the Catholic Church.
She was born into an observant Jewish
family, but was an atheist by her teenage years. Moved by the tragedies of World
War I, in 1915 she took lessons to become a nursing assistant and worked in a
hospital for the prevention of disease outbreaks. After completing her doctoral
thesis in 1918 from the University of Göttingen, she obtained a teaching
position at the University of Freiburg.
From reading the works of the reformer
of the Carmelite Order, St. Teresa of Jesus, OCD, she was drawn to the Catholic
Faith. She was baptized on 1 January 1922 into the Roman Catholic Church. At
that point she wanted to become a Discalced Carmelite nun, but was dissuaded by
her spiritual mentors. She then taught at a Catholic school of education in Münster.
As a result of the requirement of an
"Aryan certificate" for civil servants promulgated by the Nazi
government in April 1933 as part of its Law for the Restoration of the
Professional Civil Service, she had to quit her teaching position. She was
admitted to the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Cologne the following October.
She received the religious habit of the Order as a novice in April 1934, taking
the religious name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross ("Teresa blessed by the
Cross"). In 1938 she and her sister Rosa, by then also a convert and an extern
Sister of the monastery, were sent to the Carmelite monastery in Echt, Netherlands
for their safety. Despite the Nazi invasion of that state in 1940, they
remained undisturbed until they were arrested by the Nazis on 2 August 1942 and
sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where they died in the gas chamber on
9 August 1942.
She was canonized by Pope Saint John
Paul II in 1998. She is one of the six patron saints of Europe, together with
St. Benedict of Nursia, Sts. Cyril and Methodius, St. Bridget
of Sweden, and St. Catherine of Siena.
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