This movie is based on the life of Saint Edith Stein. She was a German nun of Jewish descent who had converted to Catholicism. Much of her early life was spent as an outspoken academic. There, according to the movie, she feuded with Joseph Heller, a fellow professor with right wing beliefs. In 1933, after Jews were no longer allowed to teach, she became a nun in the Spartan-like Carmelite order, but when World War II heated up, Heller, who had become an important Nazi official, took his revenge; he had her deported to Auschwitz.