Edith Stein was born into a German Jewish family on October 12, 1891, on Yom Kippur, in the Silesian capital Breslau, Germany (after 1945, Wroclaw, Poland). She was the youngest of eleven children, four of whom died in early childhood. Her father, Siegfried Stein (1844–1893), had a small trade with coals and wood and died too early for his youngest child to have any memory of him. Her mother, Auguste Stein, née Courant (1849–1936), was a matriarchal, warm-hearted woman who tried to educate her children in the traditional Jewish faith and in the celebration of the rituals. Nonetheless, the industrious and highly intelligent girl became an agnostic from her puberty onward and already in school became a champion of women's liberation.

After a brilliant performance on school examinations, she studied psychology with William Stern, philosophy with Richard Hönigswald, along with German literature and history, at the Universit...