Edith Stein and Companions on the Way to Auschwitz

Edith Stein and Companions on the Way to Auschwitz.  By Father Paul Hamans, Ignatius Press, 2010.

 

The general atrocities and horrors of the Holocaust are well known, but many of the millions of victims’ stories are not common knowledge.  Father Paul Hamans’ Edith Stein and Companions on the Way to Auschwitz consists of a series of portraits of Holocaust victims that were linked by the fact that they were Jewish people who had become Catholic.  It is important to realize that the Nazi’s genocidal policies were based on race, not religion.  Conversion often did not provide any protection from the Nazis, as the murders of this book’s subjects prove.  In his opening, Hamans writes:

 

“The Nazis wanted to exterminate all Jews.  This group of Jews who had become Catholic forms a separate whole. They became companions because they were arrested and murdered for the same reason.  On July 26, 1942, the Dutch bishops, together with the Protestant denominations, publicly protested against the deportation of Jews.  In retribution, the Nazis had more than four hundred Catholic Jews rounded up.  Many were soon released, but 113 were murdered.  The most well-known of them is surely the Carmelite nun and philosopher Edith Stein, who was canonized by Pope John Paul II on October 11, 1998.  It is also widely known that her sister Rosa suffered the same fate.

 

For the first time in the English language, a still incomplete list of Edith Stein’s eighty-two travel companions to Auschwitz is published in the present work.  The lives of twenty-eight of these murdered Catholic Jews are depicted by means of individual biographies.  In the interest of historical authenticity, the biographies were based, whenever possible, on accounts of those who saw and heard the events firsthand… For the most part, the Catholic Jews portrayed here are people who embraced the Catholic faith when they were older.  They chose very consciously to be faithful to Jesus Christ and his Church.  Theirs was a fidelity that was sustained by a great spirit of sacrifice unto death.” (xi-xii).

 

Embracing Catholicism often caused the converts to become estranged from their families and friends.  “The life stories of the individuals recounted in this volume reveal how much their baptism cost them: problems with their families, loss of social status, impoverishment, misunderstanding, and the sacrifice of their lives.”  (xiv).  Edith Stein and Companions covers the lives of over two dozen Catholic Jews.  The title character, also known as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, O.C.D. (O.C.D. stands for Ordo Carmelitarum Discalceatorum, not obsessive-compulsive disorder), is by far the best-known historical personage in this volume, though every life recounted here is worth studying.

 

In general, most of the lives profiled in this book follow a similar pattern.  Most of these individuals were raised Jewish, but were drawn to Catholicism through various ways.  A few of these subjects were children of converts to Catholicism.  Hamans differentiates the lives of his subjects well.  Edith Stein, being such a notable intellectual and writer, has one of the most interesting biographies, as we learn about her scholarly studies.  Many of the other subjects led lives of quiet contemplation and prayer, and a few others suffered from turbulent home lives in the wakes of their conversions.  Some of these people might have had a chance to immigrate and escape the Holocaust, but did not for various reasons, such a reluctance to abandon their religious communities.  Unfortunately and tragically, all of these stories end the same way: the subjects were murdered at Auschwitz.

 

“On August 2, 1942, the Nazis arrested a large number of Catholic Jews in the occupied Netherlands and sent them to their deaths at Auschwitz.  The provocation for this action was a pastoral letter that had been read in Catholic churches on the previous July 26.  This letter included the text of a telegram that had been sent by the leaders of ten Christian denominations to the German occupying forces on July 11.  Both the pastoral letter and the telegram protested the persecution of Jews in the Netherlands.

 

From various sides, the question has been raised whether these murdered Catholic Jews can be considered martyrs for the Catholic faith.  Some respond that they cannot because, as they rightly point out, the Nazis had already determined to exterminate all Jews, and Catholic Jews were not exempt.  The Catholic Jews were not murdered because they were Catholic, this position maintains, but because they were Jewish.  This argument does not, however, do full justice to the reality.  While Catholic Jews woulf have been murdered even without the telegram and pastoral letter, there are significant arguments for considering them a separate group, distinct from the other Jews who were killed during the Holocaust.  That they are blood witnesses for Catholic faith and morality is precisely what sets them apart.” (1-2).

 

Though this is heavy and heartbreaking subject matter, often these stories of faith and moral courage are inspiring.  These people shared more than identical fates, they also shared deep and powerful faiths.  The book is filled with quotes and anecdotes filled with their professions of belief, as well as statements from members of the Catholic clergy denouncing the Nazis.  Unfortunately, the Church’s attacks on the Nazis led to the Nazis seeking revenge, which spurred the murders described in this book.

 

“The Catholic Jews who were arrested on August 2 form a distinct group because their deaths can be directly linked to actions taken by the Catholic bishops in the Netherlands.  The occupying forces made the decision to arrest Catholic Jews on July 27 because the bishops had stood up for human dignity and human rights in accordance with their Catholic vision of man.  General Commissioner Fritz Schmidt made this motive publicly known on the day of the arrests.  They were taken prisoner, he explained, because the bishops had protested the treatment of Jews in general, instead of restricting themselbes to concern for Catholic Jews.  Edith Stein’s canonization demonstrates that the highest authority of the Church considers hers to have been the death of a martyr– willingly suffered for the Catholic faith.  Her companions on the way to Auschwitz died as Catholic Jews just as she did because the Church in the Netherlands, through her bishops, dared to defend the Jewish people in the name of Christ.” (2).

 

This book is not easy reading, but the oft-cited dictum about those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it applies here.  Edith Stein and Companions on the Way to Auschwitz is both a history book and a work of hagiography.  It is collection of profiles of the best of humanity in a world that was increasingly controlled by the worst of humanity.

 

 

­–Chris Chan