16 November to 23 November

Remembering and reflecting on sacrifice and courage
Last week, on Armistice Day, all the university's 'reflections' focused on remembrance. I recently visited the graveyard at Dunscore, a small hamlet in South West Scotland, where a memorial celebrates the selfless sacrifice and courage of Jane Mathison Haining. In 1939 Haining travelled to Budapest where she was matron of the girls' home in the Jewish Mission Station. By returning from a visit home, against the advice of the Church of Scotland, she knowingly put her life at risk, at a time when Jews were being severely persecuted across Europe. Her view was that if:

.the children needed her in days of sunshine, they had much more need of her in days of darkness

Haining was arrested in Budapest by the Gestapo in 1944 and taken to Auschwitz. In a letter to a friend, she wrote, 'Here on the way to Heaven are mountains, but further away than ours.' She died in a gas chamber. Few people nowadays would be willing to put their lives in harm's way trying to save others. Jane Haining did this for the whole of mankind, and though she is no more alive, her sacrifice will forever touch the hearts of others, inspiring unborn generations.

Seidu Alidu is a centenary PhD student in the School of Applied Global Ethics