THE forgotten story of the only Scot to have died in Auschwitz is to be revived by Gordon Brown in a new book being written by the Prime Minister on wartime courage.
Jane Haining, who perished in Auschwitz in July 1944 alongside an estimated two m
illion Jews, will be one of several subjects Brown is to highlight in the book, to be published later this year.
Born in Dumfriesshire in 1897, Haining was murdered by the Nazis after she admitted to having wept when seeing Jewish girls being forced to wear the yellow star of David.
Filmmakers and historians who are trying to honour Haining's forgotten bravery now hope that the book will inspire a fresh focus on someone they say deserves to be recognised as one of the greatest heroines to have emerged from the country.
A Church of Scotland missionary, she worked in a Kirk girls' home in Budapest during the war, having turned down numerous requests from the Church to return to the relative safety of Scotland. Of her insistence to stay, she declared: "If these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness."
Only two memorials to her exist: a pair of stained glass windows at the Queen's Park church in Glasgow where she worshipped, and a plaque in the Kirk of Dunscore, near where she was born.
Brown's book follows his similar volume on courage last year, which highlighted figures such as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
A plan to make a film about Haining, with Emma Thompson in the starring role, is still in the development stage three years after first being granted funding, but filmmakers hope that Brown's book will stimulate fresh interest in a woman who paid with her life for the compassion she showed to Germany's persecuted Jews and who has been dubbed "Scotland's Schindler".
Admirers of Haining say that it is about time Scotland gave her due recognition. She is commemorated on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem, named on the Avenue of Righteous Gentiles – those honoured by Israel for having aided Jews during the Holocaust.
Morag Reid, an expert on Haining's life, said: "I have come to admire her so much that I want as many people as possible to know about her. I am aghast that more people don't know her story."
Haining arrived in Budapest in 1932 to start work as the matron of the Church of Scotland-run girls' home in the Hungarian capital.
Around 400 girls studied at the mission, the vast majority being Jewish. On the eve of war, after Hungary had joined the Axis powers, the Church in Scotland ordered Haining to return home, fearing for her safety.
She refused. Indeed, it was reported that she cut up her leather luggage to make soles for the girls' shoes.
In April 1944, Haining accused a cook in the mission of eating the sparse rations of food meant for the girls. The cook, a member of the Hungarian Nazi party, denounced her to the Gestapo. Two officers arrested her and she was taken to the so-called "Gestapo villas" in the hills outside the city.
Church leaders begged for her release but she was charged, primarily, with having worked among the Jews and for having wept when seeing the girls attend class wearing yellow stars.
A few weeks later Haining arrived at Auschwitz, classified as prisoner 79467. Two months later she was dead. Officially, the cause of death was cachexia, a general collapse of the system. However, it is thought by many within the Kirk that she died, alongside millions of Jews, in the gas chambers.
She managed to send letters from Auschwitz. The last, dated July 15, 1944 – three days before her recorded death – was to the headteacher in Budapest, Margit Prem. She concluded: "There is not much to report here. Even here on the way to Heaven there are mountains, but further away than ours."
Filmmakers were given money in 2005 to make a movie about Haining's life, but the project is still in the development stage as producers seek more funding.
Brown raised Haining's story during his historic lecture to Israel's Knesset in July. The Prime Minister has also given lectures on the missionary.
Haining's example is also heralded as being responsible for furthering the cause of human rights in the United States.
One of her former pupils, Annette Lantos, the wife of US Senator Tom Lantos, formed the US Congressional Human Rights Caucus in memory of the Scottish teacher.
The full article contains 781 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
