Jane Haining
| Jane Haining | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
6 June 1897 Dunscore, Scotland, United Kingdom |
| Died | 16 August 1944 (aged 47) Auschwitz, occupied Poland |
| Occupation | Missionary |
Jane Haining (6 June 1897 – 16 August 1944) was a Church of Scotland missionary. She worked in Budapest, where she was arrested by the Nazis in 1944. She died in the concentration camp at Auschwitz later that year. Haining is the only Scot to be officially honoured for giving her life to help Jews in the Holocaust.
Haining was born at Lochenhead Farm in Dunscore, Dumfries and Galloway, 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 Athenaeum, and worked for 10 years as a secretary at a thread-maker's in Paisley. She lived in Pollokshields in Glasgow and attended Queen's Park West United Free Church.
She volunteered for service as a missionary in 1932, becoming matron of the girls' home at the Scottish Mission School in Budapest, Hungary. The Scottish Mission in Budapest had been set up in 1841 "with a main focus on evangelizing to Hungarian Jews." The mission had established a school in 1846, with funds provided by Christian Jews. Haining looked after 50 of the school's 400 pupils (most of whom were Jewish), and quickly became fluent in Hungarian.
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