Born into a devout German Jewish family, Edith Stein always excelled academically. From an early age, she displayed intellectual gifts and a hunger for learning. When World War – I broke out she had to stop her education, but resumed her studies when the fight stopped. She received her doctorate in philosophy. She soon became a celebrated philospher, author translator, and lecturer. She was a strong advocate for women in the professions and higher education. Her philosophical inquiries led her first to atheism, then to Catholicism, and finally to life as a Carmelite nun. In Auguest 1942, she was arrested by Nazis, deported to Auschewitz, and killed. Her intellectual and spiritual biography bears witness to her mental and moral depth, depiting her as one who integrated Jewish and Christian values in her saintly life and heroic death.