A hand-written will and unpublished photographs reveal more about the story of Jane Haining – the missionary who lost her life after refusing to abandon Jewish schoolgirls during the Holocaust.
Speaking about a discovery of material held by the World Mission Council’s archive at the church offices in Edinburgh, its secretary Rev Ian Alexander said: “Jane Haining was a matron in the girl’s home of the Scottish Mission and her story is one of heroism and personal sacrifice.”
Mr Alexander added: “The most poignant discovery is her last will and testament which says ‘to be opened in the event of my death’ and dated July, 1942.
“It states, in her own handwriting, ‘I, Jane Mathieson Haining being in my right mind, do hereby with my own hand give directions for the disposal of my possessions in the event of my death’.
“She lays out what her legacies are to be and who is to receive her wireless, typewriter, fur coat and watches.
“It is a wonderful document and tremendously exciting to have something that Jane Haining herself has written.
“It gives a sense she was fully aware of the risks she was taking”
Jane was born in 1897 and grew up near Dunscore, working as a secretary before moving to Budapest in 1932 to work as a matron in the Jewish Mission School.
She was arrested by two Gestapo officers and died in Auschwitz in 1944, and one of the unearthed documents reveals that Bishop Laszlo Ravasz had approached the Prime Minister’s office in a failed bid to have her freed.
A memorial cairn to Jane Haining sits outside Dunscore cemetery, and in 2010 she was posthumously awarded a Hero of the Holocaust medal by the UK Government.
