A SCOT who gave her life to protect Jewish schoolgirls during the Second World War is being celebrated in a new heritage centre that opens today to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day.
Jane Haining’s story of heroism, bravery and personal sacrifice – which resulted in her death at Auschwitz in 1944 at the age of 47 – is being remembered at Dunscore Church in Dumfries and Galloway.
A room of the A-listed building has been extended to feature photographs, letters, documents and other personal items relating to the Church of Scotland missionary, who was born near the village in 1897.
Holocaust Memorial Day is dedicated to the memory of people who suffered during genocides in mainland Europe, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
Haining worked at the Scottish Mission School in Budapest, Hungary, during the 1930s and 1940s.
She repeatedly refused to return home after war broke out, against the advice of church officials, saying the children needed her in the “days of darkness”.
She was arrested by Gestapo officers in 1944.
Haining is the only Scot to be officially honoured at the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel for giving her life to help protect Jews in the Holocaust.
Her family is being represented at the event by her niece, Deirdre McDowell, of Londonderry in Northern Ireland, who will unveil a plaque.
The heritage centre was created as part of renovation work to the building, which was part-funded by a £106,400 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund and Historic Environment Scotland.
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