The extent of Church collaboration with the Nazis in tracking down "non-Aryans" (i.e. "racial Jews") is not generally appreciated. Thus:-
"Henceforth anyone applying for government employment - and soon for various other positions as well - had to submit proof that he was not a Jew. Since prior to 1874-1876 births had been registered only by the churches, the latter were asked to help in determining who was or was not fully Aryan, for under Nazi law this depended on the racial (i.e., religious) status of the parents and grandparents. The Church co-operated as a matter of course, complaining only that priests already overburdened with work were not receiving compensation for this special service to the state. The very question of whether the Church should lend its help to the Nazi state in sorting out people of Jewish descent was never debated. ... And the co-operation of the Church in this matter continued right through the war years, when the price of being Jewish was no longer dismissal from a government job and loss of livelihood, but deportation and outright physical destruction" (1).
Edith Stein was born October 12, 1891 in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland). The births of her parents and grandparent thus fall within the time frame when the Church was the only registrar of births. Edith Stein renounced Judaism and became an atheist in 1904. She was later baptised into the Roman Catholic Church on 1st January, 1922. In 1932 she became a lecturer at the Institute of Pedagogy at Munster. However, she was forced to resign her post the following year (1933) due to antisemitic legislation passed by the Nazis. Under Nazi "race" legislation and despite the fact that she had been a self-identifing devout Roman Catholic for some 11 years and an atheist before that, Edith Stein was classified as a "Jew" (i.e. a "non-Aryan"). To appreciate fully the legislative background to this seemingly irrational decision you might now wish to briefly review the relevant legislation in, "The Concept 'Jew' in Nazi 'Race' Legislation". Unless you read this first you might miss the significance of the remainder of what now follows. (Use your back button to return to this page).
Clearly it was important to the Nazis that they were able to determine the descent of individuals if they were to successfully classify Germany's population along "racial lines". Without full access to the birth records of the grandparents and parents of individuals alive in 1933 this task might have proved impossible or, at least, very difficult. Therefore the consequences of the collaboration of the Church in this matter cannot be overestimated.
When she was forced to resign her post in 1933, Edith Stein was not a member of the Jewish religious community. As a devout Roman Catholic one can also safely assume that she was not on the membership list of a synagogue or some other Jewish communal register. For individuals like Edith Stein the usual practice was to demonstrate their descent from the birth records.
A grandparent's baptismal certificate was also taken as evidence by the authorities that s/he was not a member of the Jewish religious community and therefore, in accordance with Nazi "race" legislation, not a "racial Jew". For example, Professor M. Banton cites the case of an Austrian Christian who died fighting as a full "Aryan" for the "Fatherland" on the Eastern Front. At the same time both of his parents were registered as "non-Aryans" and subsequently murdered in Auschwitz (despite them both being the Christian offspring of Christian parents). The young Austrian's grandparents were all Christian converts from Judaism. He could thus provide the vital baptismal certificates needed as proof of "Aryan" descent by the authorities. The young man's parents did not have this option because their grandparents had remained faithful Jews (2).
So how did Edith Stein fall foul of the Nazi's antisemitic "race" legislation of 1933? Was the "non-Aryan" registration that led to her resignation from the Institute of Pedagogy at Munster due to her own Church's "co-operation with the Nazi state"? There is now the distinct possibility that a saint of the Roman Catholic Church was murdered by the Nazis thanks, in substantial part, to the collaboration of the Roman Catholic Church itself in Germany with the authorities of the Nazi state?
If you have any further evidence concerning Edith Stein, her parents
or her grandparents, e-mail me at: macabi@supanet.com.
I will appreciate hearing from you.