Glasgow Daily Record, Scotland, UK
Oct 20 2007

Legacy of Scot Murdered By The Nazis
Oct 20 2007 By Annie Brown

Exclusive Jane Haining’s School Continues To Reach Out To Those
Children Most In Need

SHE was one of Scotland’s most courageous women and Jane Haining left
behind a legacy that lives on across the globe.

The Scots missionary was murdered by the Nazis, but her compassion
had a profound impact on the Jewish children she protected from
fascism. Long after her death in Auschwitz, she inspired one of the
most important human rights drives in US Government history.

Her former pupil Annette Lantos formed the Congressional Human Rights
Caucus and she placed at its heart the principles of her teacher.

The Nazis killed Jane on August 16, 1944 and she became the only Scot
to die in Auschwitz. But the spirit of the Scottish Missionary School
she ran in Budapest will never die.

Jane’s school became a sanctuary for Jewish girls like Annette as the
spectre of fascism loomed.

Annette is in no doubt that the three years she spent at the school
shaped the woman she was to become.

She said: "To go there where we were all accepted and treated with
respect changed our attitude at an age when that was fundamental and
important.

"I owe Jane Haining and her Scottish school so much. My childhood was
lived under the shadow of a terrible war and she gave me the best
experience. That wonderful Scottish school gave me my happiest
memories of those years."

Annette, the first cousin of movie star Zsa Zsa Gabor, is married to
US congressman Tom Lantos, the sole member of the House who survived
the Holocaust during World War Two.

Democrat Lantos chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who are
currently at the centre of an international row after it passed a
bill officially labelling the killings of Armenians by Turkish forces
in 1915, "genocide."

The bill, opposed by President Bush, could spark a backlash from
Turkey, which is used as a staging area and transport route for
supplies that are sent to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Annette and Tom have been married 57 years and have worked together
for more than 20.

Annette is Executive Director of the Human Rights Caucus, one of the
most influential caucuses in Congress.

Tom Lantos discussed the Armenian issue extensively with his wife who
travels the globe with him.

He describes them "like a bicycle built for two" and tongue slightly
in cheek, maintains: "She leads, I merely follow."

He also said: "My wife’s passionate commitment to human rights stems
from the values she absorbed in that wonderful Scottish school.

"I can see in my wife’s life what an enduring and profoundly humane
education she received."

The Armenian issue, he said, was "one example of standing up for the
right thing even when it is not popular".

Jane Haining died for that same principle. She born in Dunscone near
Dumfries in 1897. She worked for 10 years in a thread maker’s in
Paisley, but at ameeting in Glasgow about the Jewish Mission, she
knew instantly: "I have found my life-work."

She was sent to the Church of Scotland mission to the Jews in
Budapest in 1932 and became head of its girls’ school.

Asthe war rumbled on, the majority of girls who went there were
Jewish, some orphaned and destitute, while others, like wealthy
jeweller’s daughter Annette, were sent there to be educated.

In the 1920s, Hungary became the first country in Europe to place a
quota on the number of Jewish pupils at its schools and even those
given a place were treated with contempt.

Of approximately 825,000 Jews living in Hungary in 1941, about 63,000
died or were killed prior to the German occupation of March 1944.

But Jane swam against the tide of hatred and in her school, each girl
was as precious as the next.

Annette said: "In other schools people who were Jewish were not
allowed to mix.

I spent a year in a Lutheran school and felt very excluded from the
social life.

Even the teachers made a distinction.

"But in the Scottish school there was a sense of acceptance. It was
democratic and so egalitarian. There was no snobbery or cliques. The
priority was education.

"It enabled us to shed the great resentment we felt against all
authority, living in this oppressive regime where we met so much
discrimination."

It was not easy for Jewish families to send their children to a
Christian school but though they sang hymns and read the bible, it
was no longer Jane’s priority to convert them.

Instead she created a sanctuary and within its walls the girls found
love, kindness and above all, normality.

Annette was there for three and a half years from the age of 10.

"We all felt that those were the best years of our young lives," she
said. "Jane Haining created a little haven for us.

"The classroom was friendly. Most of the teachers were Hungarian but
the principles were Scottish and the framework under which the
teachers operated was Scottish."

By March 1944, the Germans were on Hungary’s doorstep.

Annette’s was first cousin of the Gabor sisters and her father
Sebastian Tilemann had the largest jewellers in Budapest, placing
them on the Nazis top 10 wanted list.

On March 18th Annette fled with her mother Mary to the Portuguese
embassy and then to Switzerland.

JANE remained at the school despite requests from the church that she
return to Scotland for her own safety.

She told them: "If these children need me in days of sunshine, how
much more do they need me in days of darkness?"

But the darkness of the Nazis invaded her school. They ordered Jane
to sew yellow Stars of David to the clothes of the little girls in
her care. Tears streamed down her face with every stitch.

She incurred further wrath when she disciplined the son-in-law of the
school cook, who was a member of the Nazi party, for eating the
girls’ food.

In May she was arrested by the Gestapo, taken to Fo-utca prison,
where she was charged with working among Jews. Within two weeks she
was transported to Auschwitz with the children who had been in her
care.

She was prisoner 79467 and one of the 12,000 a day who were gassed in
the death chambers. She was only 47.

It was not until the Eighties at a reunion of alumni that Annette
discovered Jane’s fate.

She said: "I was deeply moved. I wasn’t surprised that she acted that
way. She was a woman of deep conscience and commitment to her values
and to the children in her care.

"I don’t think she could understand the extent of the inhumanity and
cruelty."

Annette is now 76, she has two daughters, 18 grandchildren and two
great-grandchildren. She lost her father, her grandparents and most
of her close relatives in the Holocaust.

In 1997, Israel awarded Jane a medal and her place with The Righteous
Among the Nations – the same honour given to Schindler. Her name is
inscribed at Yad Vashem alongside his.

Last year Annette successfully fought to have the school kept open
after it was threatened with closure. It is now a school for disabled
children run by the Hungarian Government.

Annette said: "It is a wonderful place that carries on the legacy of
the Scottish school. There is a spirit that remains."

When Annette organised the caucus in 1983, human rights was still
considered a "flaky issue" in congress.

"It was not considered a serious issue so it was difficult to
convince members to join," she said.

The Human Rights Caucus is active in highlighting abuses in countries
such as Sudan and China.

In 1987, Annette was instrumental in getting the Dalai Lama to visit
the US and in the Nineties, she travelled to Budapest for a memorial
service for Jane and laid a wreath at the school.

Annette said: "It is important that we not only remember the
atrocities, violence, murder and terror of that time, but that we
also consider the sparks of humanity that glowed in the midst of the
darkest of nights."

‘If these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they
need me in days of darkness?’

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