Young @ Heart Two Special Women 31 January 2021

Last week I’d never heard of the two women I’m going to talk about today. One of them was born in Australia and is still alive. The other was born in Scotland and died many years ago. The 2021 Senior Australian of the Year Dr Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr Baumann (AO) is an Aboriginal elder from Daly River (Nauiyu), near Katherine in the Northern Territory. She is a renowned artist, activist, writer and public speaker, and the first Aboriginal person to become a fully qualified teacher in the NT. But underlying all of these aspects of her identity is her faith in Christ. “I am beginning to hear the Gospel at every level of my identity. I am beginning to feel the great need we have of Jesus – to protect and strengthen our identity; and to make us whole and new again,” Dr Ungunmerr Baumann wrote in a foreword to the Bible Society Australia’s art book Our Mob, God’s Story – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Artists share their faith, published in 2017. I found the whole Australia Day Awards Ceremony last Monday night very moving. So much good is being done in our society by so many people. I also enjoyed seeing the help Dr Ungunmerr Baumann was given by our Prime Minister and by Bernie Shakeshaft from Armidale, last year’s local hero who helps troubled youth. It truly was a night of celebration. The woman I want to focus on is sometimes called Scotland’s Schindler. Her name is Jane Haining. When WW2 broke out, Jane Haining was working for the Scottish Mission School in as the matron of a girls’ boarding house. Called home by the Mission, Haining refused to leave, writing: “If these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness?” For the next five years, Haining sheltered scores of Jewish refugees who arrived from Nazi Europe. Haining was Former boarding school pupil Magda arrested when the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944 and was Birraux was looked after by Jane sent to Auschwitz. She didn’t return. She was recognised as Haining from 1933-1939 (photo 2017). Righteous Among the Nations by the state of Israel. Young @ Heart Two Special Women 31 January 2021

Perhaps the most moving tribute to Jane is given by one of the children she protected. “I still feel the tears in my eyes and hear in my ears the siren of the motor car. I see the smile on her face while she bade me farewell. I never saw Miss Haining again, and when I went to the Scottish Mission to ask the minister about her, I was told she had died. I did not want to believe it, nor to understand, but a long time later I realised that she had died for me, and for others. The body of Miss Haining is dead, but she is not alone, because her smile, voice and face are still in my heart.” Among the memorials to Jane Haining are two stained glass windows in Queen's Park church, , where she worshipped. It is a sad reflection on the history I was taught in school that I had never heard of Jane. Now I have and can thank God for her. We cannot be sure of the exact time and manner of her death, but we know that like most people in the Nazi concentration camps she was starved. Two days before the date given as the official date of her death she wrote a strange letter to a friend about fresh fruit and fresh bread, adding, `Even here on the road to Heaven there is a mountain range to climb.’ It is reassuring that very soon after that plaintive letter she had climbed the mountain and was with the Lord she had served so faithfully.

Christine Bradbeer