Joan McAlpine told the Scottish parliament yesterday that Scotland should have a national monument to Jane Haining, the Dumfriesshire woman who died at Auschwitz. The MSP made the call during a debate in the Scottish Parliament for Holocaust Memorial Day to mark the 75th anniversary of the camp’s liberation.
In an emotional speech Ms McAlpine told MSPs: “Jane Haining, from the village of Dunscore, died because she protected and loved the Jewish children in her care. It is clear that Jane was that very rare thing: a truly selfless person.”
She went on:
“Jane is honoured as Righteous Among Nations in Israel. She has a memorial in Dunscore Church but the time has come for a national memorial. We are are told that the Holocaust reminds us of the depths to which human beings can sink. But the selflessness of Jane Haining reminds us of that there is good in this world, that there are human beings who rose up against evil. That is what we must never forget.”
Ms McAlpine told MSPs how Jane excelled at Dumfries Academy where she was Dux, but decided to devote her life to others when she became matron of the Church of Scotland Mission School for Jewish and Christian girls, many of them orphans, in Budapest, Hungary. She refused to leave her pupils, even when she was urged to return home to the safety of Scotland.
Ms McAlpine said: “Jane had the opportunity to stay in the safety of Scotland when war broke out but refused: “If these children needed me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness?”
