Jane Haining - Second World War

Second World War

She was holidaying in Cornwall in 1939 when the Second World War broke out and she immediately returned to Budapest. She was ordered to return to Scotland in 1940 but refused, determined to remain with her girls. After the Nazi invasion of Hungary in March 1944, she again refused to leave.

She was arrested in April 1944 and detained by the Gestapo, accused, amongst other things, of working among Jews and listening to the BBC. She admitted all the charges, except those of political activity. She was detained at Fő utca prison in Buda, and then moved to a holding camp in Kistarcsa. She was sent to Auschwitz in May 1944, where she was tattooed as prisoner 79467. She sent a last postcard on 15 July 1944, and died "in hospital" at Auschwitz on 17 July 1944, of "cachexia following intestinal catarrh", although it is thought that she may have died in the gas chambers. She is one of a total of ten Scots – including two or three women – thought to have died in the Nazi extermination camps.