Life in a Jewish Family, for today
Reading Edith Stein's autobiography
Edith Stein wrote most of her autobiography, Life in a Jewish Family, in 1933, a year of great significance for her. In the span of several months, National Socialism seized power in Germany, Edith was forced out of her job as a lecturer because of her Jewish background, and she entered the Discalced Carmelite monastery St. Maria vom Frieden in Cologne-Lindenthal. She wrote the first part of the manuscript, focusing on her mother Auguste, in the months between her professional termination and her entrance to religious life. She would restart and stop and restart this writing project for the next six years.
Josephine Koeppel, OCD, who provided the present English translation of Life in a Jewish Family, writes of the text as a form of defiance. Of the crimes committed during the Holocaust, Koeppel writes:
“[O]ne of the most heinous was the intent to obliterate the individual identity of the victims. A mass grave… is a final insult to the person who must be deprived not only of life but of even the minutest tangible or recognizable individual trace which could be cherished by posterity.”
Edith Stein’s autobiography countered the aims the Nazi regime by enshrining within it a host of individual identities. The text was preserved at great risk. It had to be smuggled from Germany to the Netherlands after Edith had fled there. And then it had to be preserved again when Edith and her sister were taken from the convent and arrested. Nazism sought to destroy Jewish history, culture, homes, artifacts, art, books, and people. The preservation of Life in a Jewish allows us to reconstruct all of these. Edith did not survive the Holocaust; but her book did.
What struck me as I read the book over Lent was not just how it allowed us to reconstruct a past, but how relevant it felt for our present time. Edith’s autobiography doesn’t just speak to the world of the past; it also speaks to our present moment. Here, I’ll share a few passages that underscore the book’s relevance today, plus some that I just personally liked. They may not be the most important moments of the book, or the most important “messages” that Stein might have for us today. But I hope that they will help others consider learning more about Edith Stein, and maybe reading her work…
For you Newman lovers
I didn’t know this, but apparently Edith Stein provided the first German translation of John Henry Newman’s Letters and Diary. She had also translated The Idea of a University, which she said gave her “pure pleasure.”
Working women in the family
Life in a Jewish Family paints a largely matriarchal world for Stein. Her father died when she was just two years old, leaving her mother Auguste to take over and manage both the family lumber business and the household. As she grows up, Edith herself often plays a matriarchal role in her family and friend groups. Forming strong women seems to be a tradition in the family. Edith writes of her grandparents:
“With their small needs and problems, the children [Auguste and her siblings] would run to their father than to her. But when advice was needed on important matters, one went to my grandmother: not only her husband and children and brothers and sisters, but many friends as well. Ladies of the nobility often called on her, coming by carriage from their large estates in the vicinity, and they considered it an honor to have her for a friend.”
The women of the Stein family exercised significant resilience, illustrated most distinctly by Auguste’s ability to be a working mother after her husband’s death. Business acumen, professional training, and education was valued by and for the women of the Stein family. This is underscored by how, according to Edith, her sister Frieda “regretted” not getting any professional training for herself.
What does this have to say for us today? For one thing, Edith’s family had no time to pursue “TradWife” fantasies. They had work to do. And similar fantasies, when played out, did not end well. A primary reason Frieda regretted her lack of professional training was because she wanted to find ways to work after her divorce.
Divorce, blended families, and enduring friendships
Though culturally condemned, divorce was a normal part of Edith’s world. Edith writes about her sister Frieda’s divorce as if it was an inevitable consequence of a poor choice of husband, noting that eventually “Frieda recognized that it [the marriage] had an unsound basis.” Edith writes how her mother took Frieda and her baby back into her household “as a mother hen takes a strayed chick under her wings and, by being twice as loving, sought to help her over this very difficult time.” Edith and her siblings had been brought up “strictly,” and Edith says they “considered a divorce a disgrace.” But her writing seems to betray that choice of words. She doesn’t hide divorces from the history she writes of her family, and she writes of the decision to divorce and any fallout with tenderness and compassion.
For Edith, divorce was not something to be unconditionally prohibited, but was something which should be carefully considered and sought only under significant grounds. When her friends Nelli and Richard began divorce proceedings, Edith told Richard that she thought he had “behaved like an ‘immature youngster’ in his marriage.” And yet she didn’t believe he was “seriously guilty of anything which could justify a divorce.” But she tolerated the divorce and maintained “a trusting relationship” with Richard.
For Edith, friendships were unbreakable commitments. After she became Catholic in 1922, some of her university friends stopped talking to her, including the philosopher Fritz Kaufmann. Koeppel writes that, if any of Edith’s friendships was broken off, “that had to be the decision of the other person… [O]nce she has admitted anyone into her friendship it is a lifelong commitment for her.” And so Edith’s friendship with Fritz was reestablished after his mother became ill in 1925. She maintained her friendship with him, like many others, through exchanges of letters and, where possible, personal visits.
For Edith, no social disgrace, personal grievance, or amount of space and time could break a friendship. In a world where we are increasingly alienated from one another by political, social, cultural, religious, racial, and other differences, Edith gives an example of connection that endures beyond divides.
Nurse, educator, and feminist
Endurance, resiliency, and courage are contrary to the practices of pearl-clutching. In her autobiography she handles with tact and self-assurance a number of offensive or harmful words and actions from others, usually men. Often, Edith seems fearless. She maintains her composure and is her own person through it all.
After Germany entered World War I, Edith sought training as a nurse and desired to go as near to the frontlines as possible. She ended up working in a Lazaretto at Mährish-Weisskirchen in 1915, where she was exposed to soldiers in a variety of states. Her mother had originally objected to this, fearing the dangers of moving closer to combat. Auguste had told Edith, “You will not go with my permission.” Edith responded to her mother, “Then I must go without your permission.” And so Edith did, although Auguste did end up helping her prepare.
A few days after Edith arrived at the Lazaretto, she was talked into going to a party hosted by one of the doctors. The party started innocently, but then the guests began to drink more heavily, with a doctor at one point holding the head of a nurse while he “poured liquor into her.” Edith had no way to “escape” the party. The host, the only other sober person, was mortified. But when he asked what she thought of him she said, “I won’t form any opinion on the basis of this one evening.”
But Edith could handle herself. And she could deal with anything from the wounded patients at the Lazaretto. At one point a delirious patient refused medication and yelled at her, “Get away from me, you bitch!” Another soldier apologized for this, but she replied that “one could in no way be offended by a person as critically ill as that.”
Edith did not let men take advantage of her or those under her care. As a student, prior to those war years, Edith was to teach one of three course sections on English. Before the classes began, she heard that the two men who were to teach the other sections were “of doubtful moral character” and “took advantage of their position to form relationships with some of their female students.” Edith writes, “I was indignant at such flagrant abuse of a social institution.” So she devised a plan. She proposed to one of the male teachers that the women be assigned to her course. He was caught off guard and initially agreed. But when they met for the opening of class he said that he actually thought mixed classes would be better. Edith writes that she was “alarmed but had enough presence of mind to suggest we ought at least to offer the alternative, permitting the students to choose for themselves.” He couldn’t think of a reason to object at the time, and so they proceeded with this plan, and all but one of the women chose to join Edith’s section.
Another incident occurred while Edith was working as a nurse in the Lazaretto. While holding in place a patient’s arm during surgery, the doctor “caught hold” of her hand. Edith couldn’t withdraw her hand without causing the patient pain so, she writes “a look was my only weapon.” Seeing the look she gave him, the doctor released her hand. But he wouldn’t take responsibility for his actions. To Edith’s “great annoyance,” the doctor later whispered to her, “Don’t be mad at me!” Edith went to another Sister and said she “certainly would be emphatic when giving the doctor a piece of my mind.”
Edith writes of it:
“The tall, black-haired man in the white coat was visibly uncomfortable when I entered. I began: I had not wished to cause any commotion in the presence of the patients the day before, but now I wanted it clearly understood, once and for all, that I was not going to tolerate such behavior. He muttered churlishly that he had already apologized. But I did not allow myself to be diverted. I took the opportunity to tell him it was improper for him to address me as ‘Frälein.’ On duty he was to call me ‘Sister’; and when not on duty he was either to speak to me as he would to a lady or he was not to speak to me at all. I left the room—half satisfied that I had not minced words with the fellow and half mortified because of the embarrassing scene. In any case it did the trick. From then on he was faultlessly polite and dared not speak a superfluous word to me.”
Here, Edith demonstrates two forms of feminine strength in the face of institutional structures which would prioritize and protect the inappropriate or outright abusive actions of men: cleverness and directness. She doesn’t have just one way of dealing with these men. She shows how women should use whatever resources they can to respond in the way that makes the most sense to them when moments like these arise.
Vaccinator
After the last few years, Edith’s brief praise of vaccines feels timely, especially in the face of Catholics who would condemn the proliferation of vaccines or insist that they, as a general matter, are contrary to the life of faith. When Edith first joined the Lazaretto, she served many typhoid patients. The nurses avoided outbreaks initially through rigorous sanitation. Edith writes, “The saying went that if Matron herself were ever to become infected, she would die not from the typhoid but from the disgrace.” But the war had drastically increased the prevalence of typhoid, and, along with it, preventative measures.
Edith writes about the reason for the decrease in patients:
“[T]he typhoid station was gradually emptying out. The old patients were discharged upon recovery, and scarcely any new ones were admitted. In itself this was, of course. gratifying. I ascribed it to the effectiveness of the preventative vaccination program. While that had obviously been neglected in Austria at the beginning, it now seemed to be systemically practiced. Before any soldier was released from the wards for transport elsewhere, he received supplementary vaccination against typhoid, cholera, and smallpox. After I had assisted Dr. Flusser with these for a while, he was glad to let me give some of my own.”
The truth and love
In her youth, Edith was a precocious girl. She could be very earnest in school and with her ideas. But as she grew into her early twenties she had to learn new ways of relating to others, especially in the midst of difference and disagreement. She writes:
“I had completely changed my attitude towards others as well as toward myself. Being right and getting the better of my opponent under any circumstances were no longer essentials for me. Also, though I still had as keen an eye for the human weaknesses of others, I no longer made it an instrument for striking them at their most vulnerable point, but, rather, for protecting them. Even my tendency to correct others did not affect my new attitude. I had learned that one seldom reformed persons by ‘telling them the truth.’ That could benefit them only if they themselves had an earnest desire to improve, and if they accorded one the right to be critical.”
Here she can be seen approaching learning and developing in a similar vein to Newman. Learning must occur in the mode of the learner. And she cultivates a sensitivity to those around her. We can see this in how her attitude has changed when seeing the “weaknesses” of others. Her insight into these weaknesses becomes a tool for protecting, rather than striking. And she observes that “reform” of others is best fueled by a desire to grow on their part, not by forcing them to look at “the truth.”
Overworking and depression
As a woman in early twentieth century Germany, Edith was also in a place to explore issues such as overworking, depression, and mental illness more broadly. She writes about a friend, Toni, being dismayed by Edith’s “long hours of work, the little sleep, the indifference about my meals, and the lack of recreation.” Toni convinces Edith to join her for a meal, and they start doing this regularly.
During a conversation, Toni opens up about her mental illness. According to Edith, Toni was worried that this “might well induce me to break off my association with her.” But Edith assured her that she had already known about it, that it would “in no way frighten” her. And so the two had a deep and enduring friendship.
Edith herself had struggled with depression while a student a few years prior in Breslau. She was intellectually challenged and excelled. She writes, “This constant exertion of all my powers gave me an exhilarating feeling of living a very full life, and I saw myself as a richly endowed and highly privileged creature.” But all was not well:
“One experience… stands out in remarkably sharp contrast to this general euphoria of mine. At that time I slept in the same room as my sister Erna… There was as yet no electricity in our house, and we were using gas lamps… [W]e had a habit of leaving the burner on at its lowest setting at night, so that we could quickly turn up the light at any time. One morning our sister Frieda opened the door to our room and screamed in terror. She immediately perceived a strong odor of gas. Both of us lay in our beds, deathly white and apparently in a heavy stupor. The flame had gone out, and the gas was escaping. Frieda opened the window at once, turned off the jet, and wakened us. I returned to consciousness out of a state of sweet, dreamless rest, and what flashed through my mind upon coming to and grasping the situation was the thought: ‘What a shame! Why couldn’t they leave me in this deep peace forever?’ I myself was shocked to discovered that I ‘clung to life’ so little.”
Edith writes of herself as being in a deep depression at that time. This is a striking admission of struggles with mental illness for a Catholic saint. Her struggles make her a relatable figure for many today, and the continued unfolding of her life offers inspiration and hope to those who may be struggling.
Patriotism
Some might be surprised to learn that Edith’s family, though strict and traditional in many ways, often identified with liberal and feminist movements. Edith writes of her youth: “My brother Arno was a zealous liberal in politics; at home we read only liberal papers. That served to counterbalance the official patriotic chauvinism.”
But this doesn’t mean that the Steins opposed patriotism. Rather, Edith sees herself as a proud German citizen throughout her autobiography. Her love of country is what drives her to serve as a nurse during World War I. When war breaks out, she tells herself, “I have no private life anymore.” She commits herself to service to Germany until the conclusion of the war. Koeppel describes Edith as “a staunch German patriot.”
The turn of Nazi Germany against its Jews, writes Koeppel, was “deeper for the element of betrayal.” German Jews loved their country. “Edith tells us that her mother herself found unfathomable the notion that she was not German.” It’s hard to fathom the pain Edith must have personally felt during Nazi persecution, as a woman who volunteered to tirelessly serve German troops during World War I. But her autobiography, written after the Nazi regime ended her professional career, and partly after she had fled her country to the Netherlands, does not bear resentment towards Germany in its entirety. As a general matter, resentment is hard to identify either in tone or content across Life in a Jewish Family.
Religion and politics and danger
As today, the Protestant churches in early twentieth century Germany would often discuss politics during sermons. And, as today, that mixing turned away potential believers. Edith writes of her atheist early twenties:
“In Göttingen I had learned to respect questions of faith and persons who had faith. With some of my women friends, I even went to one of the Protestant churches at times. (The sermons there, habitually mixing politics with religion, naturally could not lead me to a knowledge of pure faith; and they often turned me off.) I had not yet found a way back to God.
This view of politics and religions is close to her views on education, that learning and reform need to focus on what is most effective for the other. Care and compassion are essential, as is self-control. In 1930, several years after her conversion to Catholicism, Edith wrote to Sister Agelundis, O.S.B., on the need to “exercise care when discussing matters of religion.” Koeppel writes of the letter:
“The risk of impulsive zeal, Edith pointed out, is that it raises the responsibility of both parties concerned, and the instrument of God’s grace must not presume upon its own efficacy, rather all of us are to depend on God’s mercy… Edith writes that whenever an encounter with another person sharpens her awareness, in her own words, ‘of our powerlessness to exert a direct influence, I have a deeper sense of the urgency of my own holocaustum.’”
Koeppel writes that this word, “holocaustum,” though causing us to feel “awe” given the association it now has with that time period, is for Edith “ a challenge to be generous in her everyday life, not only at some moment of extraordinary heroism.” This may help explain the great diligence with which Edith approached every activity in her life, combined with the significant autonomy she gave others. She had great influence through the care she provided others, but you’ll have a very hard time finding moments where Edith tells people what to do. She doesn’t focus on exerting control. Rather, her life became animated by what she called here ceterum censeo: “how one may go about living at the hand of the Lord.”
Certainly, Churches at times have a duty to directly address political figures and institutions, and to adamantly and defiantly speak truth to power. But these must be weighed carefully, especially when lives are in the balance. Edith’s death is directly connected to such an event.
On July 26, 1942, the Dutch Bishops’ Conference had all Catholic churches in the country read at Sunday Mass a pastoral letter condemning Nazi racism. In response, the following Sunday all Jewish converts to Catholicism were arrested and sent to concentration camps. A few days after the arrests, Edith and her sister Rosa were among those sent to Auschwitz. They were killed on August 9.
Edith is believed to have been brave in the face of death, tending to those who were loaded into the packed train car to Auschwitz. One wonders about the extent to which her work as a sister, caretaker, educator, nurse, philosopher, and religious Sister gave her strength and an array of resources to respond to those days. It’s said that a Dutch official, impressed by her faith, offered to help her escape, but she responded that "[i]f somebody intervened at this point and took away her chance to share in the fate of her brothers and sisters, that would be utter annihilation. But not what was going to happen now."
She died with her sister Rosa (who had also become a Carmelite) and her Jewish family in Auschwitz in 1942, leaving Life in a Jewish Family unfinished.
But the book’s unfinished state makes it especially timely for the season of Easter. For Catholics living in my country, the United States, Easter can seem like a happy and carefree time to celebrate and eat candy with family. For many Catholics around the world, however, Easter is celebrated under conditions of distress or persecution or poverty or inescapable suffering. These were the conditions that Edith Stein found at the end of her life. And so her story is left unfinished as a reminder of the promises of the Resurrection. Those promises are not just for those who observe Easter with carefree celebration. They are for those who are in darkness at the end of this world and are most deserving of a promise of hope.