Die Auserwählte

In this book, Jasminka DomaS impressively outlines the life story of Edith Stein (1891-1942), who was born as the youngest daughter into a very conservative Jewish Orthodox family. As an expert in Jewish culture and history, DomaS recounts Edith Stein's early doubts about the existence of God. However, an apparition of an angel leads her back to the path of faith, though not in the Jewish sense, but in the Christian faith. She decides to join the Carmelite order and is baptized as Teresia Benedicta of the Cross. The inevitable conflict between Edith and her strictly Jewish mother represents a preliminary climax of the book and is reminiscent of the tradition of the Platonic dialogue. However, life in the convent ultimately cannot protect Edith Stein from the mass deportations of the Nazis. She and her sister Rosa are deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942, where they are murdered. The described deportation raises philosophical and existential questions that, in light of the unimaginable inhumanities of the extermination camp, ultimately remain unanswered.