Edith Stein

Life events

1. Born — 1891

   Edith Stein was born on 12 October 1891 in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), the youngest of eleven children in an observant Jewish family; her birth fell on Yom Kippur, which made her a particular favorite of her mother.

2. Other — 1915

   From 7 April to 1 September 1915 Stein served as a volunteer Red Cross nurse at an infectious-diseases hospital in Mährisch Weißkirchen, interrupting her doctoral studies after the outbreak of World War I.

3. Educated — 1916

   Stein completed her dissertation on empathy at the University of Freiburg in 1916, receiving a doctorate in philosophy summa cum laude; she then became Edmund Husserl's assistant, editing his manuscripts for Ideas II and III.

4. Baptized — 1922

   Stein was baptized into the Catholic Church on 1 January 1922, a conversion prompted by her reading of the autobiography of Teresa of Ávila during a summer holiday in Bad Bergzabern in 1921.

5. Wrote — 1933

   In a letter to Pope Pius XI written in 1933, Stein denounced the Nazi regime and requested a public condemnation of its antisemitic policies, stating that silence before such happenings reflected on the Church's honor; the letter received no reply.

6. Tonsured — 1934

   Stein entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery St. Maria vom Frieden in Cologne-Lindenthal in October 1933 and received the religious habit as a novice in April 1934, taking the name Teresia Benedicta a Cruce (Teresa Benedicta of the Cross); she made her perpetual vows on 21 April 1938.

7. Martyred — 1942

   Following the Dutch Bishops' Conference public condemnation of Nazi racism read in all churches on 20 July 1942, the Reichskommissar ordered the arrest of all Jewish converts; Stein and her sister Rosa were arrested by the SS on 2 August 1942 and killed in the gas chambers at Birkenau on 9 August 1942.

8. Other — 1998

   Teresa Benedicta of the Cross was beatified on 1 May 1987 in Cologne by Pope John Paul II and canonized by him on 11 October 1998 in Rome; she is also named one of the six co-patron saints of Europe.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Stein was born on Yom Kippur, 12 October 1891, which her mother regarded as a sign of special significance; she was the youngest of eleven children and had become an agnostic by her teenage years. (certain)
• Göttingen rejected Stein's habilitation thesis in 1919 not on scholarly grounds but because she was a woman; the rejected work was published in Husserl's Jahrbuch in 1922. (certain)
• At Westerbork transit camp a Dutch official offered Stein an escape plan; she refused, stating that to be removed would be 'utter annihilation' — depriving her of the chance to share the fate of her brothers and sisters. (likely)
• Teresa Benedicta of the Cross is one of the six patron saints of Europe, together with Benedict of Nursia, Cyril and Methodius, Bridget of Sweden, and Catherine of Siena. (certain)
• The miracle accepted for Stein's 1998 canonization was the recovery of Benedicta McCarthy, a child who had ingested a toxic amount of paracetamol; her father, a Melkite Greek Catholic priest, prayed for Stein's intercession and the child recovered completely. (likely)