Eighty years after Edith Stein’s death at Auschwitz, a Vatican cardinal has said Mass in her honour near the former death camp. Raised as a Jew, Stein was an atheist philosopher who converted to Catholicism in 1921 when she was 30. She became a Discalced Carmelite nun in 1938 and took the name Sr Teresa Read more
In 1922, Edith Stein read the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila through the night. The spiritual account rocked her world, and led her to the peripheries of her own heart. And there, in the avoidance of religious truth and its call to love and mercy, Edith found peace and consolation — a peace that Read more
Auschwitz victims included a Scottish woman who died at the Nazi death camp after refusing to abandon the Jewish girls in her care at a missionary school in Budapest. Her will has been discovered in church archives. Jane Haining is the only Scot named as “righteous among the nations” – non-Jews who risked their lives Read more
Pope Francis condemned the horror of Auschwitz on Wednesday (Aug. 3), saying he felt the “presence of all the souls who passed through” the concentration camp that he visited during his trip to Poland last week. Speaking at his first weekly public audience at the Vatican since June, the pope reflected on his visit to Read more
Pope Francis is likely to question humanity and the depths to which it can fall during his visit to the Auschwitz death camp in July, a confidante says. Francis will visit the camp while he is in Poland for World Youth Day. He will follow in the footsteps of his predecessors, St John Paul II Read more
The Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl survived for three years in several concentration camps – Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, and Dachau. His brilliant memoir Man’s Search for Meaning contains moving reflections on how noble the human spirit can be even amidst filth, cruelty and horror. Here are seven inspiring quotes from this famous book: 1. Here is his Read more
Following my recent blog on David Aaronovitch’s memoir, there was a comment by someone going by the name “Terry Mushroom”. I don’t always read all the comments following blogs, but Terry’s was so good I actually wrote it down (a first for me) and wish to share it here for those who might have missed Read more
Pope Francis will visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in July. He will visit the former Nazi death camp in southern Poland on July 29, on the third day of his visit to the country. Two of his predecessors have also visited the camp, John Paul II – himself Polish – in 1979 and retired pope Read more
Those who survived Auschwitz called the man in charge an “animal.” Rudolf Höss presided over the extermination of some 2.5 million prisoners in the three years he was commandant of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Another half a million died there from disease and starvation. A year after his tenure came to an end, he returned Read more
“I think it’s fair to say,” says Géza Röhrig softly, “that we haven’t learned anything from Auschwitz. The cruelty exhibited there exists today against the Kurds and elsewhere. “You have a feeling of insecurity about tomorrow. There’s a level of chaos because global powers do not agree on the most minimal consensus.” Röhrig is the Read more