Jane Haining was a woman whose life was a true testament to loving-kindness, courage, and an unwavering refusal to be a bystander.
Born in 1897 on a farm in Dunscore, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, Jane Mathison Haining was an exceptional student, eventually becoming the Dux of her final year at Dumfries Academy. After a decade working as a secretary in a thread-making factory in Paisley, her life’s true calling was revealed when she attended a meeting about the Church of Scotland’s Jewish Mission. She knew instantly, telling a friend, “I have found my life-work.”
In 1932, Jane arrived in Budapest, Hungary, to serve as the Matron of the Scottish Mission School for girls. This school was a special haven, educating around 400 Christian and Jewish girls aged 6 to 16. As Matron, Jane was responsible for the boarding students, and she poured her heart into this role. Former pupils remember her for her warmth and kindness, creating an atmosphere of “democracy, equality, and tolerance.” She treated all the pupils equally, so much so that one former student recalled, “We did not even notice who was Christian and who was Jewish.” Jane showed her deep care in practical ways, rising at 5 a.m. on market days to secure food for the home and even reportedly cutting up her own leather suitcase to repair the girls’ shoes.
The shadow of World War II began to darken Europe, and when the conflict broke out in 1939, Jane was on holiday in Scotland. Her employers, the Church of Scotland, repeatedly advised her to return home to safety. Yet, she looked ahead to the darkening peril facing her girls and refused to abandon them. Her famous words capture the extraordinary depth of her commitment: “If these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness?”
She stayed for four long years, dedicated to keeping the girls safe and the spirit of the school alive. However, in March 1944, the Nazis finally occupied Hungary, and the danger became immediate. When the order came for all Jewish children to wear the yellow Star of David, Jane was so heartbroken for her pupils that she wept bitterly while helping to sew the stars onto their clothes.
Her selfless devotion and protective actions led to her betrayal. In April 1944, she was arrested by the Gestapo. Among the outrageous charges brought against her were working among Jews, listening to the BBC, and the poignant, simple “offence” of weeping when sewing on the yellow stars. Her “crime” was, quite simply, showing human kindness.
Jane Haining was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in May 1944. She was 47 years old when she died there, likely in the gas chambers, in July 1944. In one of her last known letters from the camp, she wrote a final, haunting message to her friends, asking for food, and concluding, “There is not much to report here… Even here on the way to Heaven are mountains…”
For sacrificing her life for her Jewish pupils, Jane Haining was posthumously recognized by Yad Vashem in Israel in 1997 as Righteous Among the Nations. She is the only Scot to be granted this profound honour. Her legacy is one of the brightest lights in the darkest period of history, a powerful and inspirational reminder of the strength found in courage, compassion, and a beautiful refusal to treat any human being as “the other.”
