Edith Stein

Edith Stein was born in Breslau, Germany in 1891, and raised in an Orthodox Jewish household. Abandoning her faith in her teenage years, Edith pursued a doctorate in philosophy—a very unusual choice for a girl then—and published prolifically.

At 31, Edith came across a book by St. Teresa de Avila, whose words inspired her conversion to Catholicism one year later—another unusual choice. Nearly a decade later, just a few months after Hitler came to power in 1933, she was forced to resign from her teaching position at a Catholic university. Once again, this unusual woman did something few would do in her position: she wrote to the pope—not to plead her case, but on behalf of others suffering a fate like hers, and much worse—urging him to denounce the Nazis. She was honest, bold, fearless—she was the very definition of chutzpah!

While it’s not known for sure, it’s very likely that the pope read her letter—he never responded to her directly, but he did send a blessing to her family after she sent the letter. What is most crucial, however, is that he never denounced the Nazis.

In yet another unusual choice, the pope’s inaction notwithstanding, six months after writing her letter, Edith applied to the Order of the Discalced, and eventually became a nun.

In 1942, Edith was murdered at Auschwitz.

In 1998 she was made a saint in the Catholic Church, an act which did not sit well with the Jewish community, who felt that it was an act of cultural appropriation—regardless of her conversion, she was born a Jew and was ultimately murdered for being one.

I wrote Letter from Edith using only her words, and believe that she spoke them as a Jewish Catholic, or a Catholic Jew, not just as one or the other. I honor her as an unusual, amazing individual, Jewish at the core, but most of all, uniquely herself.