A number of symbols of Europe have emerged since antiquity, notably the mythological figure of Europa.
Several symbols were introduced in the 1950s and 1960s by the European Council. The European Communities created additional symbols for itself in 1985, which was to become inherited by the European Union (EU) in 1993. Such symbols of the European Union now represent political positions in support of EU policies and European integration as advocated by Europeans.
Edith Stein OCD (German: [ʃtaɪn]; in religion Teresa Benedicta of the Cross; 12 October 1891 – 9 August 1942) was a German philosopher who converted to Catholicism and became a Discalced Carmelite nun. Edith Stein was murdered in the gas chamber at the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp on 9 August 1942, and is canonized as a martyr and saint of the Catholic Church; she is also one of six patron saints of Europe.
Stein was born into an observant German Jewish family, but had become an agnostic by her teenage years. Moved by the tragedies of World War I, in 1915, she took lessons to become a nursing assistant and worked in an infectious diseases hospital. After completing her doctoral thesis at the University of Freiburg in 1916, she obtained an assistantship to Edmund Husserl there.
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