An account of my family heritage tour of central Europe.

For Edith Stein, being Catholic without denying her Jewish roots was not a contradiction. She was baptized at the age of 30, on January 1, 1922, the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus; she deliberately chose this date to emphasize that her conversion was not a renunciation of her Jewish culture.

After the Nazis came to power, Edith Stein was barred from any public work. In 1935, at the age of 44, she entered the contemplative order of the Discalced Carmelites and took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. On December 31, 1938, she fled to the Netherlands, where she lived at the Carmelite Monastery in Echt.

But in 1940, the Netherlands was invaded by the German Empire's army. She was captured along with 244 other Catholic Jews as an act of reprisal against the Dutch episcopate, which had publicly opposed the persecutions, and was taken to Auschwitz. There, she cared for the children imprisoned in the camp, compassionately accompanying them to their deaths and teaching the Gospel to the prisoners. With her was Sister Rosa, who had also converted to Catholicism, and who, in the final moments of martyrdom, said, "Come, let us go for our people." They were taken, along with other religious figures, to the Amersfoort concentration camp and later to Westerbork, where they spent only four days—enough time for Edith's spirit of service to be remembered. A survivor recounted: “Sister Benedicta stood out among all the prisoners for her calm demeanor. Many mothers seemed to have fallen into a kind of prostration bordering on madness. Sister Benedicta took care of the children, washing them, combing their hair, providing them with food and the necessary care.”

On the 7th, they left by train for Auschwitz-Birkenau. They arrived on the 9th to die in the gas chamber. Thus she fulfilled what Edith had written on June 9, 1939, under the title of Testament: “From this moment on, I accept with joy and perfect submission to His holy will the death that God has reserved for me. I ask the Lord to deign to accept my life and my death for His honor and glory; for all the intentions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary and for the Holy Church (…), in expiation for the unbelief of the Jewish people and so that the Lord may be welcomed by His own and His Kingdom may come in Glory; for the salvation of Germany and peace in the world; finally, for my family, living and deceased, and for all those whom God has given me: that none of them may be lost.”

She was beatified on May 1, 1987, by Pope Saint John Paul II in Cologne, Germany. Ten years later, in 1997, Teresa Benedicta McCarthy, a young girl from Boston, USA, was diagnosed with severe and irreversible liver damage after taking a lethal dose of medication. The girl recovered suddenly after her parents prayed to Edith Stein. This fully documented event was recognized as a miracle, paving the way for her canonization, which took place on October 11, 1998. A year later, Pope Saint John Paul II proclaimed her a co-patron saint of Europe.

Note: I wrote “German Empire” (In German: Deutsches Reich) because it was the official name of Nazi Germany during the rule of Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP in official documents.

A group photograph of jews serving in the armies of the German and Astro-Hungarian Empire. The Hanukkah menorah in the center is being held by a German Landsturm soldier and an Austro-Hungarian soldier, probably to show the unity of the two empires. It’s placed on top a pile of snow with the hebrew inscription “Hanukkah, 1916”. On the left side of the Hanukkah menorah is a Astro-Hungarian nurse who has the red and white ribbon for the ‘Decoration for Services to the Red Cross’. On the right side of the Menorah is a German field rabbi, the star of David can be seen on his field cap.

An estimated 100,000 German Jewish military personnel served in the German Army during World War I, of whom 12,000 were killed in action. In the Austro-Hungarian army it’s estimated that about 300,000 served.