Memorial stone to brave Presbyterian missionary Jane Haining

A Church of Scotland school matron who died in the German Auschwitz concentration camp after refusing to abandon Jewish girls in her care is to be honoured with a stone memorial in the centre of Edinburgh.

City of Edinburgh Council is to install a 'Stolpersteine' or ‘stumbling stone' memorial to Jane Haining, a second World War heroine.

Miss Haining, a Presbyterian farmer's daughter from the village of Dunscore in Dumfriesshire, trained as a Church of Scotland missionary in Edinburgh and, in 1932, became matron of the Scottish mission school in Budapest, Hungary which had 400 pupils aged from 6-16-years-old, a mixture of Jews and Christians.

Jane helped keep the children safe until she was betrayed and arrested by German Nazi officers in April 1944.

Charged with eight offences, she was jailed in Budapest before being transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau by rail in a cattle wagon along with scores of others on May 14, 1944.

Jane died there a few months later aged 47 and was subsequently recognised as ‘Righteous Among the Nations' at Yad Vashem World Holocaust remembrance centre in Jerusalem, the only Scot to be given the honour.

The motion to recognise her in Scotand's capital city was proposed by Edinburgh SNP Scottish SNP parliamentarian Angus Robertson and passed unanimously by councillors earlier this month.

Church of Scotland moderator the Rev Iain Greenshileds said Jane was a woman of deep Christian faith.

"She was fully aware of the risks she was taking but repeatedly refused Church of Scotland pleas to leave Budapest and return home to Scotland as the war engulfed Europe."

‘Stolpersteine' or ‘stumbling stones' are small brass plaques set in pavements with the inscription of the name and life details of victims murdered by the Nazis. across Europe.

There are now more than 75,000 brass plate memorials outside the homes or places associated with victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

Angus Robertson said: "Jane Haining is Scotland's most prominent Holocaust victim and is 'Righteous Amongst the Nations' at Yad Vashem, a 'Stolpersteine' to her memory will be fitting, outside Edinburgh's St Stephen's parish church, where her mission to help Jewish children was dedicated."