Jane Haining: A Life of Love and Courage, by Mary Miller, is an extremely unusual, interesting, and conflicting (for a Jewish reader) remembrance of one Holocaust victim.

Jane Haining was born in 1897 in Scotland, to a farming family.  When Jane was a young girl, her mother died in childbirth, yet Jane remained an optimistic, faith-filled, devoutly religious, warm and happy Christian girl, and then woman.

In 1932 she left Scotland to work at the Church of Scotland’s Jewish Mission School in Budapest.  She was much loved by the students of the school, many of whom were orphans, of both the Christian and Jewish faith.

The school was a missionary school, seeking to ultimately baptize and convert Jewish children (may G-d protect us), however, when the winds of war arrived in Hungary, Jane refused to leave her post, refused to return to Scotland, and did her utmost to protect, care for and shelter the Jews in her school.

Jane was murdered in Auschwitz in the summer of 1944.

Jane was eventually named by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Amongst the Nations.

Her story is enlightening, interesting, and important, albeit, as a practicing Jew, one reads about a missionary with conflicting emotions.  This work is recommended to anyone interested in knowing more about the history of the Jews during the Holocaust, particularly in Hungary, and discovering an atypical Holocaust heroine.