Scotiana

We are delighted to publish this second Letter from Scotland received from our dear friends Iain and Margaret. A very moving story…

I wonder whether you remember driving that time from Wanlockhead (home to the Lead-Mining Museum) all the way to Wigtown, to explore the many bookshops? The journey would have taken you through part of Nithsdale, just north of Dumfries, a relatively quiet but very pleasant part of Scotland. Drumlanrig Castle, with its art treasures, and Ellisland Farm – where the poet Burns tried farming for the last time – are two of its main attractions.

Dumfries & Galloway Wanlockhead Road © 2006 Scotiana

H V Morton wrote about this area, too, in his travel books of the late 1920′s and early 30′s: “In Search of Scotland” and “In Scotland Again.” (I know he’s a particular favourite of yours, Marie-Agnes!)

But who would suspect a link between this quiet corner of Scotland and the most appalling event of the Second World War – the Holocaust that spread through Europe, as country after country fell under Nazi domination?

That link was Miss Jane Haining, the heroic Church of Scotland missionary born near Dunscore, but who died in the vile prison-camp of Auschwitz. Her name has been added to those of the Righteous Among the Nations at the Yad Vashem Memorial, Jerusalem.

Jane Haining

Jane Haining was born on the 6th June 1897, at Lochenhead Farm, just a short distance from the village of Dunscore. Her parents were deeply religious. When Jane was just five years old, her mother died in childbirth. Grievous and bitter though this loss was, it may have played some part in making Jane the outstandingly self-reliant and resourceful woman she was to become.

A clever girl, Jane excelled at school, winning a bursary to attend Dumfries Academy. In the senior school, she was the leading pupil in her year (‘dux,’ as we say in Scotland.) She had a particular flair for languages, and was an early boarder at Dumfries – both relevant to her later life’s work, as we shall see.

Jane, now 18, moved up to Glasgow, where she took a secretarial course, and soon had a job with J & P Coats Ltd, of Paisley, the famous threadmakers. She progressed to become secretary (‘P.A.’ we might say today) to the Company Secretary – a senior and responsible job. And Jane had also by now joined Queen’s Park West Church, quite close to the rooms where she stayed in Forth Street, Pollokshields. (This same Church is now known as Strathbungo Queen’s Park Church.)

Glasgow Queen's Park Baptist Church - Wikipedia

Jane Haining was active in Sunday School work, a knowledgeable and hard-working teacher; kindly too, bringing each week a bag of cream buns for her pupils. She founded a library of books on Missionaries, in which she had, even then, a particular interest.  It may be significant that Jane had a cousin already doing missionary work in India, sent by a Canadian church. Around 1927, Jane Haining seems to have first felt herself called to this work. Her employers at Coats’ persuaded her to stay on, giving them time to train a successor.

Five more years were to pass before Jane’s work began in earnest. Following another year-long course in Glasgow, this time at the College of Domestic Science, Jane Haining arrived finally at the Scottish Mission in Budapest, Hungary. It was September 1932, and she’d been appointed Matron of the Girls’ Hostel attached to the School there (which you can still see in ‘Vorosmarty utca’ – Vorosmarty Street.)

Budapest then, as now, was a beautiful city. Jane loved it from the start. The Scottish Mission, housed in a handsome five-storey building, had a long history, stretching back to the 1840′s. The School  had its own head-teacher and staff -  the head of the Junior School set about teaching Jane Hungarian, and in three years she had an excellent command of this difficult language.

Hungary Budapest Mujegpalya Ice Rink - Wikipedia

In Jane’s charge were 30 to 40 girls, mostly from a Jewish background, many orphaned or otherwise uncared-for. The total roll of the School – which had an excellent reputation – exceeded 400 pupils at times. It’s important to understand, I think, that the Scottish Mission did not set out directly to ‘convert’ young people – this was actually against the law in Hungary. Rather, the Mission aimed to show these deprived youngsters Christian love in action, surrounding them with care and kindness; so that,  in years to come, many of them would turn towards Christianity.

To this end, it was thought good that some of the girls – a quarter, or so – should be Christian. Jane Haining had the idea of keeping in touch with the girls who left each year, by holding an ‘At Home’ on Sunday afternoons, open to all who wished to visit. These reunions were an important feature of the Mission’s work.

Jane loved her girls, and they loved her, too – but what was she really like? A simply-written letter explains; received at the Mission  after Jane’s death, from a girl called Anna.. .. (She is tearful, having been brought to this strange place by her mother, who couldn’t cope.)

“Suddenly I heard a nice voice. ‘Oh, you would be our little Anna.’ I could not see anything except a couple of beautiful blue eyes and I felt a motherly kiss on my cheek. So this was my first meeting with Miss Haining, and from this very moment I loved her with all my heart.”

Jane declined to return to Scotland when war broke out in 1939; later, it was reported that she’d cut up her suitcases, using the leather to repair the girls’ shoes. Abandoning the children was never in her mind.
‘If they need me in days of sunshine,’ she wrote in one letter home, ‘how much more do they need me in days of darkness?’

Budapest Jane Haining plaque © The Girl from Noddy's House -Flickr

The Scottish missionary must have felt in particular danger – if, indeed, she thought of herself at all – after the Nazis invaded Hungary in March 1944. Very soon she was under arrest. The incident that prompted her seizure by the Gestapo seemed trivial enough in itself – she’d challenged a young man, Schreder by name, who’d been helping in the kitchen, accusing him of stealing from the girls’ meagre supply of food. But this fellow was an ardent Nazi, a member of the Hungarian Nazi Party, and he denounced her. From the ‘Gestapo Villas’ in the Buda Hills, Jane was taken to the ‘Fo utca Prison’ (Fo Street Prison) in Budapest, then to the dreaded Auschwitz camp.

Appeals from the Church of Scotland, the Hungarian Reformed Church and the Swiss Government were ignored. Brave and saintly Jane Haining died in Auschwitz on 17th July 1944.

Irongray churchyard Jane Haining family Memorial © Iain McEwan

The Church of Scotland has been prominent in commemorating the life of this heroic missionary. A pair of stained-glass windows in Jane’s old church in Glasgow  – one to each side of the entrance – were amongst the first memorials. There are plaques, of course, at the site of the Mission in Budapest. And a small cairn was built in 2005 to Jane’s memory in the grounds of Dunscore Parish Church.

Dunscore Jane Haining Memorial © JamesPicsSK - Picasa

The State of Israel honoured Jane Haining in 1997, when her name was added to those of the Righteous Among the Nations (or ‘Righteous Gentiles’  -  non-Jews who, often at great risk to themselves, helped Jewish people during the Holocaust.) A tree was planted, and Jane’s name  inscribed on the wall in this section of the huge Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem Yad Vashem Memorial Hall of Names - Wikipedia

Jerusalem Yad Vashem Memorial Hall of Remembrance - Wikipedia

In Glasgow, too, a dignified and memorable ceremony took place on 8th December 1997, in the new St. Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art. Mr Moshe Raviv, Ambassador of Israel to the UK, presented Jane Haining’s medal and certificate from the Yad Vashem Authority to her step-sister, Mrs Agnes O’Brien. (These items are now displayed in the St. Mungo Museum, very close to Glasgow Cathedral.)

Glasgow St Mungo's Museum © 2001 Scotiana

Mr. Ben Helfgott, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Committee in Britain, spoke first. (Mr. Helfgott is himself a concentration-camp survivor, and was instrumental in having Jane’s heroism recognised by the Israeli authorities.) The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Right Reverend Alexander McDonald, replied on behalf of Mrs O’Brien. “This award is a timeous reminder of a life lived faithfully, both in service and in sacrifice.”

Assuredly, the memory of this courageous Scotswoman will endure for all time.

Holocaust Righteous medal Wikipedia

A bientot, Marie-Agnes, Janice et Jean-Claude!>

Iain.

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1. ‘The Scottish Chiefs’ by Jane Porter