Edith Stein

Edith Stein (1891-1942) was born into an observant Jewish family. She became an atheist as a teenager, but at the age of thirty encountered the autobiography of Saint Teresa of Ávila, converted to Catholicism, and took vows as a Carmelite nun. Because of her Jewish ancestry she was executed at Auschwitz by the Nazis in August 1942. She was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1998.