Jane Haining

Jane Haining (6 June 1897 - 17 July 1944) was a Church of Scotland missionary. She worked in Budapest, where she was arrested by the Nazis. She died in the concentration camp at Auschwitz.

Early life

Haining was born at Lochenhead Farm in Dunscore, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. She was the fifth child of Thomas Haining, a farmer, and his first wife, Jane Mathison, a farmer's daughter. She grew up as a member of the evangelical Craig church in Dunscore (Reformed Presbyterian until 1876, then Free Church of Scotland until 1900, and then United Free Church). She was educated at the village school, and won a scholarship to Dumfries Academy in 1909. She trained at the commercial college of Glasgow's Athenaeum, and worked for 10 years as a secretary in Paisley. She lived in Pollokshields in Glasgow and attended Queen's Park West United Free Church.

She volunteered for service in 1932, becoming matron of the girls' home at the Scottish Mission School in Budapest, Hungary. She looked after 50 of the school's 400 pupils, and quickly became fluent in Hungarian. Most of the pupils were Jewish.

econd World War

She was holidaying in Cornwall in 1939 when the Second World War broke out, and the immediately returned to Budapest. She refused to return to Scotland as ordered in 1940, determined to remain with her girls. After the Nazi invasion of Hungary in March 1944, she again refused to leave.

She was arrested between in April 1944 and detailed by the Gestapo, accused, amongst other things, of working among Jews and listening to the BBC. She admitted all the charged, except those of political activity. She was sent to Fő utca prison in Buda, and then a holding camp in Kistarcsa. She was sent to Auschwitz in May 1944, where she was tattooed as prisoner 79467. She sent a last postcard on 15 July 1944, and died "in hospital" at Auschwitz on 17 July 1944, of "cachexia following intestinal catarrh". She is one of a total of ten Scots - including two or three women - thought to have been put to death in the Nazi extermination camps.

Memorials

Among the memorials to Jane Haining are two stained glass windows in Queen's Park church, Glasgow, where she worshipped; a plaque in the little Kirk of Dunscore; two plaques in the Scottish mission in Budapest; and enrolment at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

Pelicula Films are to produce a film about Haining titled "There Are Mountains On The Road to Heaven". The film, a Hungarian co-production, will be backed by Scottish TV, Screen Screen and the European Commission. The director of the film will be Mark Littlewood and it will feature the talents of producer Ian Smith and screen writer Chris Dolan. The film will be based on interviews with four pupils who survived, Dr. Zsuzanna Pajs, Dr. Maria Kremer, Ibolya Suranyi (Budapest), and Annette Lantos (Washington) [ [http://www.sundayherald.com/47038 The Sunday Herald - Scotland's award-winning independent newspaper ] at www.sundayherald.com] [ [http://www2.variety.com/mipTV2005_listings.asp?company_id=2527 Variety.com Special Report: MIP TV - Listings 2005 ] at www2.variety.com] .

References

*"Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study 2006", by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
* D. F. Wright, "Haining, Jane Mathison (1897–1944)", 'Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/48816, accessed 30 March 2008]

External links

* [http://www.auschwitz.dk/Haining.htm auschwitz.dk]
* [http://www.shoah.dk/Courage/Haining.htm shoah.dk]
* [http://www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/holocaust/holocaust_remembrance_2004_-_other_victims/holocaust_remembrance_2004_-_resistance/holocaust_jane_haining.htm eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk]