Edith Stein didn't become a Catholic to escape being a Jew.
She didn't see the Nazi storm gathering and run for the shelter of the Church.
She converted out of intellect.
Born in 1891 in Breslau she was the youngest of eleven children in a devout Jewish family. But by her teenage years she'd stopped praying.
She declared herself an atheist. She didn't want rituals. She wanted answers.
She became a giant in the world of philosophy.
She was the star student of Edmund Husserl, and possessed one of the sharpest minds in Europe. She spent her days dissecting the nature of empathy and human consciousness.
She wasn't looking for a savior. Instead, she was looking for "The Truth."
In 1921 she read the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila. She read it all night and when she finally finished the book at dawn, she didn't say she found peace. She said, "This is the truth."
She was baptized on New Year's Day 1922. This was a decade before Hitler took power.
It wasn't a survival strategy. It was a conclusion.
When the Nazis rose to power she entered the Carmelite convent in Cologne. She didn't do it to hide. She explicitly stated she was offering her life as a sacrifice for "her people."
She was transferred to a convent in the Netherlands for safety.
But safety was an illusion.
August 2, 1942. The Dutch Bishops released a letter condemning the Nazi deportation of Jews. The Nazis were furious. They decided to retaliate. They ordered the immediate arrest of all "Catholic Jews."
Two SS officers knocked on the convent door. They found Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross in her habit.
To the Nazis her baptism was ink on paper. Her Jewishness was genetic, immutable, and a crime punishable by death.
She didn't beg or hide behind her new faith to escape the fate of her ancestors. She grabbed the hand of her sister Rosa who had also converted. She spoke five words that defined her life.
"Come, we are going for our people."
She died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz seven days later.
Decades later the Church recognized her sacrifice. In 1987 Pope John Paul II beatified her in Cologne. In 1998 he canonized her in Rome declaring her a Saint and a "daughter of Israel".
He honored her as a martyr of the faith. But the history books are clear.
She sought the truth her entire life. Even when it led her to the gas chamber.
Melissa Steinberg Brodsky
