Jane Haining
Jane Haining joined Queen's Park West as a young woman at the end of the first world war and lost no time in harnessing her gifts and energies to the work of the congregation. She became an enthusiastic monitor in the Band of Hope and gave notable service to the Sunday School as a teacher and in due course as Secretary.
But having heard the call to missionary service she resolved to undertake training to that end. She resigned from a lucrative post as Secretary with J. & P. Coats, took a Diploma at Glasgow School of Domestic Science and for a time worked as a Matron in a Radium Institute in Manchester. Through an advertisement in "Life and Work" she heard of the need of a Matron for the Girls' Home of the Jewish Mission Station at Budapest. She felt that this was the task for her.
In spite of the fact that she had no knowledge of the Hungarian language she was appointed to the post and, in June1932, after training at St. Colm's, she was dedicated for missionary service. and set out for Budapest.
She returned home in 1935 and 1939, having become more than proficient in speaking Hungarian and with a great love for her work- caring for unwanted Jewish girls. She returned to Hungary for the last time shortly after Hitler's invasion of Poland. Twice she was urgently requested to return home but she refused. "If the children needed her in peace-time," wrote her sister, "they had much more need of her in war-time and she would never have had a moment's happiness if she had come home and left them."
Life in Budapest became indescribably hard with restrictions of all kinds enforced upon Jane and her work. Finally, in May, 1944, she was arrested by the Gestapo and detained in the Fo-utca prison. Efforts were made to secure her release without avail.
Finally, without any semblance of a trial, she was cast into the extermination camp at Auschwitz where on 17th July she died of starvation.
J. L. Craig said in tribute, "no-one can assess the value of her whole-hearted service of love. That is God's secret". The Report to the Assembly of 1945 said "Typical of all that is best in the Scottish tradition of missionary service, she gave the best years of her life to enhancing that tradition and at last gave life itself." The Kirk Session Minute of 12th September, 1944,records, "Her work in Budapest was of the highest order and her faithful and devoted service in the Sabbath School of Queen's Park West Church and in Renwick Mission will be long and worthily remembered."
The Kirk Session resolved that there should be some form of permanent memorial and in due course the two stained glass windows in the vestibule were commissioned, installed and dedicated in June 1948 by Mr. Craig. Truly Jane Haining wrote a proud chapter in the history of Queen's Park West .
