Relentless light

Within a few decades, Edith Stein (1891 Breslau–1942 Auschwitz) emerged from the shadows of an anonymous death to achieve great international recognition. Two factors contribute to this extraordinary attention: her thematically broad and thought-provoking works in the fields of phenomenology and philosophy of religion, as well as her unusual fate, marked by remarkable human greatness. Above all, her transformation from philosopher to Carmelite in the ominous year of 1933 and her murder in Auschwitz at the age of 51 drew attention – as a victim among many in the mass death, but as a victim in conscious representation.