03/09/2026
She was as St Colms College in Edinburgh and I (Shirley) passed her photo daily on the way into chapel. So good she is remembered.
Jane Haining, remembered in the Calendar of the Scottish Episcopal Church as Missionary and Martyr, has been added to a memorial wall at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Haining, who was the matron of the Church of Scotland's mission school in Budapest refused repeated requests to leave Hungary during the Second World War, choosing instead to remain with the Jewish and Christian girls in her care. On one of the occasions she was asked to return to the Scotland, she responded: “If children need me in the days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in the days of darkness?”
She was arrested by the N***s in 1944 and transported to Auschwitz where she died later that year. The memorial to which her name has been added remembers prisoners for whom no registration photograph survives. Haining remains the only Scot recognised by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for her efforts to protect Jewish people during the Holocaust.
She was added to the SEC's Calendar in 2021 following a vote of the General Synod.
You can read more about this new memorial at the Church of Scotland website here: https://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/news-and-events/news/articles/kirk-school-matron-who-died-in-the-holocaust-recognised-at-auschwitz
You can read more about her addition to the SEC Calendar here: https://www.scotland.anglican.org/jane-haining-added-to-sec-liturgical-calendar/
