Description
On the Way to Auschwitz
Father Paul Hamans
“On the same summer day in 1942, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) and hundreds of other Catholic Jews were arrested in Holland by the occupying Nazis. Of those arrested, 113 (several of them priests and nuns) perished at Auschwitz and other concentration camps. They were murdered in retaliation for the anti-Nazi pastoral letter written by the Dutch Catholic bishops.
“While St. Teresa Benedicta, canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1998, is the most famous member of this group, all of them deserve the title of martyr. They were killed not only because they were Jews but also because of the faith of the Church, which had compelled the Dutch bishops to protest the Nazi regime.
“Through extensive research in both original and secondary sources, Fr. Pauol Hamans has compiled these martyrs’ biographies, several of them detailed. The book contains remarkable conversion stories, including that of Edith Stein, the German philosopher who had entered the Church in 1922 and later became a Carmelite nun, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
“Several of these witnesses had already suffered for their faith in Christ before falling victim to Hitler’s ‘Final Solution’, as they endured both rejection by their own people, including family members, and persecution but the s0-called Christian society in which they lived. Among them were those who, like St. Teresa Benedicta, perceived the cross they were being asked to bear and accepted it willingly for the salvation of the world.” [From the cover]
In addition to Edith Stein, accounts of the following Hebrew Catholics are included :
Rosa Stein, Edith Stein’s sister
Dr. Ruth Kantorowicz
The Goldschmidt Sisters
Alice Reis
Sister Maria Löwenfels, PHJC
Sister Mirjam Michaelis, CSJ
The Lob Family
Dr. Lisamaria Meirowsky
The Bock Family
Elvira Sanders-Platz
The Hamburger Family
Brother Wolfgang Rosenbaum, OFM
Sister Judith da Costa, OP
An Appendix lists other Hebrew Catholics murdered in response to the letter of the Dutch bishops in 1942.
Ignatius Press, ©2010, Soft cover, 310 pages
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