Jane Haining: A Life of Love and Courage

Jane Haining was undoubtedly one of Scotland’s heroines.A farmer’s daughter from Galloway in south-west Scotland, Jane went to work at the Scottish Jewish Mission School in Budapest in 1932, where she was a boarding school matron in charge of around 50 orphan girls. The school had 400 pupils, most of them Jewish. Jane was back in the UK on holiday when war broke out in 1939, but she immediately went back to Hungary to do all she could to protect the children at the school. She refused to leave in 1940, and again ignored orders to flee the country in March 1944 when Hungary was invaded by the Nazis. She remained with her pupils, writing ‘if these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness’.”Her brave persistence led to her arrest in by the Gestapo in April 1944, for “offences” that included spying, working with Jews and listening to the BBC. She died in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz just a few months later, at the age of 47. Her courage and self-sacrifice, her choice to stay and to protect the children in her care, has made her an inspiration to many.

Reviews of Jane Haining: A Life of Love and Courage

'In this well-researched and clearly written book Mary Miller pieces together the fragments of Jane Haining's life. Haining's firm moral compass emerges clearly, making her story heroic as well as heart-rending. Materially, she may have left little behind, but her legacy is enduring' * Church Times * 'The story of a woman so committed to staying with her students as a missionary teacher that she risked and indeed suffered in the Holocaust is well told in this biography by Mary Miller' * Methodist Recorder * 'Haining's is a terrible story but it is also an inspiring one, as as the stories of all those who looked evil in the face, and "no" to it' * Catholic Herald * 'The definitive account of the life of the Dumfriesshire-born girl. Mary Miller has meticulously researched Jane Haining's life and created a seamless and compelling acount' * Life and Work * 'Mary Miller has written a detailed and very moving biography and Jane Haining is widely recognised as a woman of rare and noble character. Her story is both moving and ultimately horrifying and Miller tells it extremely well' — Allan Massie * Scotsman * 'Meticulously researched, beautifully written and deeply moving. Mary Miller shows Jane not as a saint but as a living, breathing often laughing person. A fine biography about a fine and brave woman' — Maggie Craig 'Jane Haining, a Scottish woman killed by the Nazis for her work among Jews in wartime Hungary, has found the biographer that she deserves. Soberly, movingly, Mary Miller tells the story of her life, and her death, in the service of an ideal. An inspiring tale of quiet heroism' — Neil MacGregor 'A biography as calm, meticulous and movingly humane as Jane Haining herself. Mary Miller has reclaimed the life of a woman who embodied the best of Scotland and the finest values of her faith – and done her proud' — Sally Magnusson