THE only Scot to die in Auschwitz after she refused to abandon Jewish girls in her care told her sobbing pupils “Don’t worry, I’ll be back for lunch” as she was led away by the Gestapo.
Jane Haining’s heartbreaking and haunting last words were recalled by one of her "girls", Agnes Rostas, who joined eight other women at emotional memorial events held in the Scottish Mission in Budapest, Hungary.
The former pupils, who are now aged between 80 and 91, met with officials from the Church of Scotland to pour over a treasure trove of Ms Haining's documents and photographs discovered in Edinburgh earlier this month.
They told of how they were all dispersed and hidden within an hour of the beloved boarding school matron’s arrest 72 years ago, and given new names.
Mrs Rostas, 80, revealed she was among a group of distraught primary school children who looked on helplessly as the Nazi's secret police searched Miss Haining’s office and interrogated her for hours before arresting her on eight trumped up charges of espionage.
The missionary, who was jailed in Budapest before being eventually taken to the death camp where she died at the age of 47 after surviving just two months, was betrayed by the school cook's son-in-law whom she caught eating scarce food intended for the girls.
Mrs Rostas, a Jew, only learned of the "mother figure" matron’s tragic fate 40 years later at a memorial event in St Columba's Church, which is next door to the now state-run primary school.
"On the morning of that day German officers were visiting Miss Haining and from our bedroom window across the hall, we could see her room, she poignantly recalled.
“After hours of questioning we could see that the two officers were taking her away and as they were going down one set of stairs, we hurried to another set to follow them down.
“We were sitting at the foot of the stairs crying and she looked back and said to us ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back by lunch’.
“That was the last time I saw her and I found out 40 years later she had died in Auschwitz.”
Miss Haining, a former Coats factory worker in Paisley, is the only Scot named as “righteous among the nations” – non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis – by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.
She managed to keep dozens of girls safe for four years, despite living under surveillance. The charges levelled at her by the Gestapo included working with Jews, listening to the BBC, and weeping when seeing her girls being forced to wear Nazi-issued yellow star identification badges to school.
She was on holiday in Cornwall when war broke out in 1939 - seven years after she took up her post - but immediately returned to Budapest and her charges whom she was devoted to.
She was repeatedly ordered by the church to return to Scotland, but refused, writing "If these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness".
A group of 26 Church of Scotland Ministers and members were in the Hungarian capital last weekend to commemorate the extraordinary bravery of Miss Haining, prisoner 79467, and to mark the 175th anniversary of the Scottish Mission in Budapest.
An exhibition, which charts the Mission's history, is on display and brought back bittersweet memories for the pupils - a time of joyous childhood innocence that turned to unimaginable terror.
Rev Ian Alexander, Secretary of the Church of Scotland World Mission Council, said: “Jane Haining’s story is one of heroism and personal sacrifice.”
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