The GTU library is extending its current exhibition, The Life and Times of Edith Stein, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross: An Archival Exhibit , thorugh February 28, 2014. The exhibit opened on October 1.
Edith Stein (October 12, 1891-August 9, 1942) was a German Jewish philosopher who became a convert to the Roman Catholic Church. When she could no longer teach in Germany as a Jew, she was accepted into a Discalced Carmelite convent in Cologne in 1933. She was arrested with other Jewish converts to Catholicism in the Netherlands by the Gestapo and executed at Auschwitz in 1942. She was canonized in 1998. Materials for the exhibition are from an archival collection donated to the GTU library by Susanne Batzdorff, a niece of Edith Stein. The photo at right is Rosa Stein and Edith Stein at Echt, 1939.
A dedication ceremony to formally acknowledge the donation by Susanne M. Batzdorff, niece of Edith Stein, of her collection on her aunt to the Graduate Theological Union, was held on Tuesday, October 29, 2013. Speakers in order of the video are: GTU President Riess Potterveld, Welcome; GTU Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs Arthur Holder, Master of Ceremonies; Eloise Rosenblatt, PhD and family law attorney; Rev. Dr. Thomas Devereaux, Santa Rosa Diocese; Emily Leah Silverman, Visiting Professor at GTU; Justin Gable, student and teacher at Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology; Rev. Dr. Louis Weil, professor emeritus at Church Divinity School of the Pacific; he also reads short remarks by Carmelite Provincial Rev. Dr. John Sullivan, OCD; and Susanne M. Batzdorff.
Dedication Ceremony, Susanne M Batzdorff donation of her Edith Stein Collection to Graduate Theological Union from GTU Archives on Vimeo
The finding aid for the collection is located on Online Archive of California.
Support for the exhibition is from a generous donation by Eloise Rosenblatt and a grant from the American Theological Library Association.