Jane Haining and the Christianisation of the Holocaust: constructing and deconstructing the memory, myth, and martyrdom of ‘Scotland’s schindler’

Abstract

This thesis examines the life and career of Scottish missionary Jane Haining – who died at Auschwitz in 1944 – as well as the mythologised construction of her memory as a ‘heroic Christian martyr’ who gave her life for Jewish children during the Holocaust. While the Church of Scotland has long been eager to honour Haining for her missionary service to Budapest Jewry, Scotland’s Jewish community points to the historical circumstances of her work: converting the Jewish people to Christianity. This thesis focuses on Haining as a case study, with the intention of analysing complexities and challenges within memory studies, and the broader study of Holocaust rescuers. Notably, such challenges signify a wider phenomenon of Christianising the Holocaust. As this thesis explores, collective memory of Haining’s martyrdom is sustained by mythological conceptions derived from Christian values. Yet, this narrative tends to mitigate, or ignore the extent of Jewish suffering during the Holocaust. In recent years, popularisation of the Holocaust through media culture has further solidified the mythological conception of Haining as ‘Scotland’s Schindler’, and has garnered her numerous posthumous honours, including the title of ‘Righteous Among the Nations’, and more recently the ‘Heroes of the Holocaust’ medal. The first section of this thesis addresses the historical circumstances of Haining’s life, career, and death at Auschwitz. Section two examines the construction of the Haining narrative through personal and collective memory, the challenges that the myth of martyrdom poses for Holocaust memory, and the continued personification of Haining as a ‘Heroine of the Holocaust’ and a Christian martyr through literary works. As is further examined, this Christianised interpretation of Haining’s work, and of the Holocaust, are challenging for Scottish Jewry, who interpret the mythologised narrative as an affront to their own culture, and an effort to characterise past missionary activities apologetically. Interdisciplinary in nature, this thesis examines a range of subjects, including history, Holocaust studies, cultural/memory studies, religion and theology, and oral history.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Alexander, Robert Sessa: orcid.org/0000-0001-6326-9689

ORCID for John Mcaleer: orcid.org/0009-0008-6971-7997

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