A ROSE IN WINTER

UK, 2018, 137 minutes, Colour.
Zana Marjanovic, Christian Cooke, Ken Duken, Anja Kruse, Karl Markovics, Alice Krige, Franco Nero, Mia Jexen.
Directed by Joshua Sinclair.

After she was canonised by Pope John Paul II in 1998, Edith Stein was proclaimed one of the Catholic patrons of Europe, along with St Benedict.

Edith Stein was a very strong character during her lifetime, coming from a German Jewish family, born in 1890. An intelligent girl, she was also an avid reader and thinker. At University, she studied phenomenology under the expert, Edmund Husserl. She served as a nurse during World War I.

In her career as a philosopher, she was also a strong advocate of women’s rights, giving speeches around Germany, forthright, experiencing difficulties with the police.

Ever since her childhood, Edith Stein probed questions about the presence of God, the experience of death and grief, especially of her father. In her wide reading and discussions with friends, she was attracted towards the Catholic Church, especially the teachings of St Teresa of Avila, was baptised and considered a vocation to the Carmelites. Eventually, in 1934, she became a Carmelite, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Holy Cross.

The conversion to Catholicism of a Jewish woman was always controversial, her mother disapproving of her baptism. However, with the rise of Hitler (and Edith Stein writing to Pope Pius XI and to the German Bishops about him, demanding action), she transferred from Cologne to a convent in Holland, making itself known to the authorities, but eventually arrested, transported to Auschwitz where she was murdered.

Given her spiritual and theological life-journey, Edith Stein is a focus for Jewish-Catholic? dialogue.

The film, A Rose in Winter, is a contribution to this dialogue.

The film offers an opportunity, in the length of 2 ¼ hours, to see something of the life of Edith Stein, to appreciate her philosophical, theological, spiritual and social journey. And, it offers dialogue which enables the audience to reflect on the meanings of her journey, the intellectual consequences, the emotional consequences.

While the film opens with shadowy scenes of railway lines, eventually leading to Auschwitz, the structure of the film is as a journalistic investigation. A young writer for the New York Times in 1963 is offered the opportunity to work on a file on Edith Stein. Busy, he is reluctant but sees her photo. This will have quite some dramatic and emotional significance by the end of the film.

The journalist’s name is Michael Prager. He immediately goes to Europe and begins a series of interviews with a number of people close to Edith Stein, beginning with her sister, Rosa. This provides the background for flashbacks showing Edith as a little girl, the Jewish family celebrating a Seder meal (and a reminder of the links with the Catholic Eucharist), her grief at the death of her loving father, her immediately trying to grapple with issues of God. We also see her as a precocious teenager, wanting to skip classes, avid in her reading as well has her questioning of all kinds of issues.

On the emotional level, there are World War I scenes, her work as a nurse, an encounter with a soldier, Hans, to whom she is attracted – and consequent scenes of her coming to him when he was wounded, his proposal of marriage, her rejection, yet the bond that remained even after her rejection of his proposal.

Audiences watching the film and not knowing so much about Edith Stein may be surprised at how powerful she was a presence in the women’s movement, the suffragette movement in Germany, her speeches and rallies around the country, her forthright presentations, even getting her into trouble with the authorities. And in the meantime, she studied philosophy, a top student, especially with the phenomenologist, Edmund Husserl.

Michael Prager’s discussions with Edith Stein’s friend, Anna, led to her interest in the Catholic Church, the attraction to St Terea of Avila, the screenplay having her quotation including ‘I have no other hands but yours…, Edith Stein is also impressed by people going to kneel and sit in prayer in the church while visitors to the synagogue went for ceremonies. Eventually, she approaches a priest, is baptised (to her mother’s dismay), waits for a sign for her entry into Carmel.

Already the film has given a great deal for audiences, Jewish and Catholic, to reflect on.

Michael Prager also visits the priest, now a bishop in the 1960s, who gives the background to Edith’s life as a Catholic, her reading and prayer, feeling that she had found a destination in her spiritual journey, taking the rise of Hitler and his demagoguery as a sign that she should enter Carmel, with a scene of her final profession and its ritual, her commitment (including flashbacks to her family and Hans).

Michael Prager makes a final visit to Hans’s son, find his diary, appreciates Hans’s sadness at Edith’s refusal of his proposal yet her influence on his later life.

There are quite a number of scenes of Edith Stein writing in her cell, her diaries, with substantial quotations from them.

Ultimately, for Edith, it is an acknowledgement of her pride in her Jewish background, her being arrested, sent on the train to Auschwitz. She was killed in 1942.

However, for the film audience, there is a very emotional postscript concerning Michael Prager, his contact with Edith Stein as a little boy of seven, at the station in Holland, on the train, his escape from the train and his subsequent adoption by a Polish family. This means that the audience, moved by the story of Edith Stein and the impact of her death in Auschwitz, continues very emotionally in sharing the story of Michael Prager.

It means that while God may seem absent in the lives of so many people, especially those in the trains to the death camps, God was present in different ways in different people, moving them to outreach and sharing God’s love with unanticipated consequences.

The maker of this film, writer-producer and director, Joshua Sinclair, is an actor and writer with quite an eclectic career, sometime lecturer in comparative theology but his CV notes that at one time with medico background he did some work with Mother Teresa in Calcutta.

The hope would be that with A Rose in Winter, Edith Stein, Sister Teresa Benedicta, Patron of Europe, which is acknowledged in the final captions of the film, would be seen as a significant 20th-century figure for Jews and Christians alike.


1. Audience knowledge of Edith Stein? Jewish, Christian, Catholic?

2. A film for dialogue between Jews and Catholics? The nature of the responses? The conversation?

3. The film as an investigation, a true story, the 1960s, the New York Times? Visits to Germany, Holland, Poland? The atmosphere 20 years after World War II?

4. The work of Michael Prager, the true story, his work at the New York Times, journalist, the folder, the photo, seeing Edith Stein, his decision to take the job? The gradual revelation about his contact, seeing her, at the station…?

5. The introduction, the atmosphere of the trains, the darkness, going to the concentration camps? The folder, the photo falling out, Edith Stein, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Jewish, Catholic nun?

6. The Stein family, the mother and her strong stances, the loving father, the meal, and the breaking of the bread and echoes of the Catholic Eucharist? Michael Prager meeting Rosa, the discussions on memories? Edith the doll, her father, her father’s love, his death, the funeral, her grief, questioning God?

7. Edith and God questions, the Jewish background of understanding of God, God’s presence, God’s absence, the reality of doubts? At school, her questions, wanting to skip classes, her skills, capacity for reading, philosophical understandings? Growing up, the teenager?

8. The studies, at the University, meeting Edmund Husserl, studying with him? Phenomenology?

9. World War I, the encounter with Hans, her not drinking the Schnapps, his nickname for her, the talk sharing, the kiss? His being wounded, her visiting him? Her attachment to him, the meetings, his proposal to marry Edith and her hesitation, her causes, religion, God, her deciding to become known? Their parting?

10. Edith the strong, philosopher, issues of God, metaphysics? Her cause for women? The speeches and rallies? The reaction of the police, Husserl in the classroom? Her students

11. The growing awareness of Hitler, discounting him at first, the discussions with Rosa?

12. Her friendship with Anna, their discussions, visiting the Catholic Church, picture of Teresa of Avila, the quotation about being on earth the hands of God?

13. The attraction to the Catholic Church? The quality of reading, seeing the woman praying in the church making the contrast with synagogues for ceremonies, the church also as a place for prayer? The visiting the priest, his hesitation about her conversion? The answer with all the references including Thomas Aquinas?

14. The years passing, her waiting for a sign, her life, the courses, her baptism, her mother’s refusal to come?

15. Hitler as a sign, 1934, the joining Carmel, the sequence of her profession? The ritual?

16. Her going home, to visit her mother, her mother’s death? The bond with the family? Rosa and the Catholic Church?

17. The Convent in Cologne, the transfer to Holland, the writing to Piu XI, the scene of the Pope? Her courage? Writing to the German Bishops at the outbreak of war?

18. Her life as a nun, the scenes of cloister and prayer? Her writing her diaries, in herself? Reporting to the authorities in Holland, Rosa and Edith getting the Jewish star? The
arrest? Wanting Rosa to go to the United States? Edith Stein deciding to stay, her motivations?

19. At the station, her being transported, the seven-year-old boy, her looking at him, in the train, the pregnant mother, the birth, the mother’s death? The organising of the escape for the boy, the slats from the wall of the train, getting him out, his running and hiding?

20. Michael and his visits to Rosa and returning? Discussion with Anna and the understanding of Catholicism? Is visiting the Bishop, the bishop and his accident, in the wheelchair, the discussions, understanding Edith’s Catholicism? Further research, authorities and documents? Visiting Hans’ son, his document? Edith and her love for Hans, her love for God?

21. Michael, his escape, at the farm, hunger, being taken in by the Pragers, becoming their son? At the end of the war, the documentation, his identifying himself as Prager? His going to the United States?

22. A portrait of Edith Stein? An exploration of her Jewish identity, her conversion to Catholicism, her being a nun, her philosophy, theology, spirituality? Her willingness to go to death as a Jew? Her being canonised, patron of Europe?