“Since the Catholic Bishops have meddled...

“…in affairs that have nothing to do with them, all the Catholic Jews will be deported by the end of this week. No intervention (in their favor) will be respected."

So said the Nazis the day after their actions were condemned from every Catholic pulpit in Holland.

Within the week, several hundred had been rounded up, including two Carmelite nuns who were biological siblings and converts from Judaism. They were taken out of their convent on August 2, 1942 and brought to Auschwitz a week later, where they were immediately put to death.

One of these two sisters had been a brilliant philosopher – a protégé of the famous Edmund Husserl. Her writings before and after her conversion would influence a young Polish priest and philosophy student who would become the great Pope John Paul II.

Sister Teresa Benedict of the Cross, whose birth name was Edith Stein, was put to death on this very day 63 years ago. She was beatified in Cologne, Germany, in 1987 and declared a saint in 1998.