Scots schools’ film honours Christian heroine of the Holocaust

The life of a Christian heroine of the Holocaust is to be honoured in a film for school children in Scotland.

Commissioned by Unison, the documentary tells the story of Jane Mathison Haining, a Scottish missionary in Hungary who refused to stop caring for Jewish girls as World War II broke out.

Unison plans to formally launch the high school resource across Renfrewshire in January 2026, with a view, if successful, to distributing it more widely.

Ultimate price

Haining was matron of a girls’ home at the Jewish Mission School in Budapest, where she managed to keep her charges safe during the first four years of conflict.

Refusing to return home in 1939, she told the Church of Scotland: “If these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness?”

Shortly after the invasion of Hungary by Hitler’s army in 1944, Haining was betrayed, arrested and transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where she died three months later, at the age of 47.

Haining was declared a British Hero of the Holocaust by the UK Government in 2010.

Following Christ

Reflecting on the film of her aunt’s life, Deirdre McDowell commented: “Jane had a strong Christian faith and for her to move to Budapest alone, a city where she knew no-one and learn the language was an amazing thing to do.

“But she felt that as long as she had God with her and followed Christ’s teachings, she would be all right and that was her maxim throughout her life.”

Dumfries Academy History teacher Heather Chalk said the lessons based on the documentary “provided a valuable opportunity to examine the ethical challenges she encountered, fostering meaningful discussions on courage, sacrifice and moral decision-making in the face of adversity”.

McDowell hopes the story of her aunt’s sacrifice will show pupils how “little things can mean so, so much”.