A statue of Edith Stein blessed in the Carmelite church in Würzburg
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Communicationes The sculpture is the work of Paul Nagel, and shows the saint as a woman striding valiantly ahead, carrying in her hand a scroll of the Jewish Torah and the Christian cross. The sculptor sought to produce the precise moment after her arrest, when she set out for the Gestapo carriage with her sister and felt the urge to say to her: “Come, let us go for our people”. The work is cast in bronze and a copy of the 5.45 metre (18ft) marble statue made by the artist for a niche in the facade of St Peter’s in Rome, which was put in place three years ago. The statue, 1.6 metres high (5¼ft), is placed on a 1.2 metre (4ft) pedestal with the inscription, “Ad orientem” the last message from Edith showing her alive when on August 7, 1942, she was deported by train to Auschwitz concentration camp, where she was murdered in a gas chamber. Greifswald has a residential university dedicated to “Edith Stein” Two day later, on October 13, the foundation stone was laid in the university city of Hasen, Greifswald, of a park-dwelling complex for students, which will bear the name of the holy Carmelite, “Edith Stein”. The complex will contain more than 200 apartments. Fr Ulrich took advantage of the celebrations with its illustrious guests to give a presentation on the holy philosopher and martyr, to whom the building was to be dedicated. At the head of the guest list was the Mayor of this flourishing University City, with more than 12,000 students and around 60,000 inhabitants. In his vote of thanks, the Mayor expressed his happiness at the fame and acknowledgment given to such and important person as Edith Stein. For the majority of those invited, around 100, it was perhaps the first time they had heard the name of Edith Stein. In fact, one of the workers afterwards said that nobody would build a house to be dedicated to an unknown person on blessed land. |
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Posted in Communicationes, general news
