Princess Royal says Holocaust heroine Haining must never be forgotten

A SCOTTISH school matron who gave her life to help protect Jewish pupils during the Holocaust must never be forgotten, the Princess Royal has said.

Jane Haining was matron of the Scottish Mission girls’ boarding school in Budapest, Hungary, from 1932-1944 and refused to abandon the Jewish girls in her care, many of whom were orphans.

She sheltered them for more than four years until she was arrested and eventually taken to the Auschwitz-birkenau death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, where she died at the age of 47

– six months before it was liberated in 1945.

Miss Haining was the subject of an online lecture hosted by St Columba’s Church in London last night, delivered by Mary Miller who has written a book about her.

Princess Anne, who is patron of the Scots In London Association, said: “Jane Haining is an inspirational subject whose devotion to duty is a lesson to us all.

“Jane’s determination and resolution in looking after her young charges at the Scottish Mission School in Budapest, at the eventual cost of her own life, is an example of service over self that deserves to be told and remembered.

“The lecture by Mary Miller, who herself has looked after deprived children in Glasgow, will be poignant but we can take heart from the knowledge that Jane’s life will be honoured.”

The lecture, entitled An Inspiring Tale Of Quiet Heroism, was organised in partnership with the Scots in London Association and featured music performed by violinists Adam Romer and Kirsty Lovie. They are Hungarian and Scottish respectively and members of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Miss Haining, who grew up in Dunscore near Dumfries, was posthumously awarded a Heroine of the Holocaust medal and named Righteous Among The Nations at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.