
True heroes are indeed rare, and such was the uniqueness of Edith Stein, who went to her death in Auschwitz wearing the Star of David on her nun's habit, after offering herself as a sacrifice in an effort to save others. She was born into a German Jewish family; became assistant to the philosopher Edmund Husserl, converted to Catholicism and took her vows as a Carmelite nun 12 years later. When the Nazis rounded up Jews for extermination, Edith Stein proudly identified herself as Christian and Jewish, and in 1942, was gassed. Twenty years after her death, the Vatican began the formal canonization procedure the St. Teresia Benedicta a Cruce, the name she took--which make her the first Jewish Catholic saint of our time.





