Edith Stein(religious name Teresia Benedicta a Cruce OCD; also known as St. Edith Stein orSt. Teresia Benedicta of the Cross; 12 October 1891 – 9 August 1942) was aGerman Jewish philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a DiscalcedCarmelite nun. She is canonized as a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church,and she is one of six co-patron saints of Europe.

She was borninto an observant Jewish family, but had become an atheist by her teenageyears. Moved by the tragedies of World War I, in 1915 she took lessons tobecome a nursing assistant and worked in an infectious diseases hospital. Aftercompleting her doctoral thesis at the University of Freiburg in 1916, she obtainedan assistantship there.

From readingthe works of the reformer of the Carmelite Order, Teresa of Ávila, she wasdrawn to the Catholic faith. She was baptized on 1 January 1922 into the CatholicChurch. At that point, she wanted to become a Discalced Carmelite nun, but wasdissuaded by her spiritual mentors. She then taught at a Catholic school ofeducation in Speyer. As a result of the requirement of an "Aryancertificate" for civil servants promulgated by the Nazi government inApril 1933 as part of its Law for the Restoration of the Professional CivilService, she had to quit her teaching position.

Edith Steinwas admitted as a postulant to the Discalced Carmelite monastery in Cologne on15th October, on the feast of Saint Teresa of Avila, and received the religioushabitas a novice in April 1934, taking the religious name Teresia Benedicta ofthe Cross. In 1938, she and her sister Rosa, by then also a convert and anextern sister (tertiaries of the Order, who would handle the community′s needsoutside the monastery), were sent to the Carmelite monastery in Echt,Netherlands, for their safety. Despite the Nazi invasion of that state in 1940,they remained undisturbed until they were arrested by the Nazis on 2 August1942 and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where they died in the gaschamber on 9 August 1942.