The Ethics of Auschwitz

The notion of "Ethics" is considered by many to be at its most complicated at present. But as renowned astrologer Brad Kronen points out in his latest book "The Ethics of Auschwitz: Oskar Groening & Edith Stein," contemporary society need only look to the not so distant past of the Second World War to see just how far the Western World has come in establishing new societal standards of human civility.Kronen looks at the very different lives of two people who both have gained global notoriety as of late for their time spent at the largest of the Nazi death centers during the war, the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. One who arrived there as a Nazi prison guard named Oskar Groening and the other who arrived at the concentration camp as a prisoner named Edith Stein. Groening eventually left Auschwitz and would draw the attention of the international press when at the age of 93 in 2015 he was put on trial for his time spent there in military service. Edith Stein never left Auschwitz due to being murdered in the death camp's gas chambers immediately upon arriving there. Edith Stein was born a Jew who had converted to Christianity and became a cloistered Carmelite Catholic nun. She gained international notoriety not only for being a philosopher with a Ph.D but Stein's life was celebrated by Catholics around the world when in 1998 the nun who perished in Auschwitz was canonized a Catholic saint named Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. In this fascinating and uniquely provocative book, Brad Kronen supports his belief that only by remembering the horrors from a not so civil time in the not so distant past can the modern world ensure itself a more civil, ethical, and globally humanist future.