Carmelite nun of Jewish descent "Nina" Schwarzová has departed to eternity.
Krakow. On Monday, January 2nd at 5:15 PM, Sister Anna Magdalena Schwarzová (born March 14, 1921) was called to eternity in the Krakow monastery of the Discalced Carmelites at the age of 96. A significant figure in the underground church, active in the anti-communist resistance and later in the Chartist movement. Recipient of the Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk Order (2010) and other state awards.
She came from a Jewish family in Prague and converted as a teenager. In 1939, she wanted to join the Carmel, but her acceptance was postponed due to her youth and her recent conversion. In 1941, she was deported to Terezín with her entire family, and she returned only with her mother. After the war, she became a postulant of the Discalced Carmelites, cared for her sick mother, and studied French and English at the university. In 1948, she entered the Carmel, but the communist regime immediately abolished all male and female religious orders in then Czechoslovakia. She worked in the underground church, which led to her arrest by the state security in 1953. She was sentenced to 11 years in prison and served six years (1953–1960). After that, she worked as a laborer and, from 1968, as a translator at the Agricultural University. However, she was particularly active in Czech samizdat. In 1976, she retired. A year later, the state authorities surprisingly allowed her to travel abroad, likely hoping she would emigrate. Nina, as she was known in dissident circles, contacted the Roman leadership of the Carmelites, her unfinished novitiate from 1948 was recognized, and she was permitted to make religious vows, which she took in Krakow in 1980. However, it was not until 1985 that the state authorities finally allowed her to legally emigrate to Poland, where religious life was possible even under the communist government, and after a tumultuous active life, she entered the cloister of the Discalced Carmelites.
Sister Anna Magdalena Schwarzová's funeral will be held on Saturday, January 7th at 9 AM in Krakow.
(Excerpted from www.radiovaticana.cz)
