A Scottish missionary who died at Auschwitz after refusing to abandon Jewish children in her care in Budapest will be honoured at Hungary’s torchlit March of the Living, as research reveals she saved many other Jews from certain death by helping them emigrate to Britain.

Jane Haining, who grew up in rural Dumfriesshire, is the only Scot to be honoured as “righteous among the nations” – the term used for non-Jews who risked their lives to protect Jews from extermination – by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre in Jerusalem.

A new biography of Haining, written by the international charity worker Mary Miller, describes how she taught domestic management and lectured on British social life at the church mission where she worked from the early 1930s, with the aim of encouraging emigration as refugee domestic servants.

Hungary’s annual March of the Living, typically attended by upwards of 10,000 people and marking the country’s Holocaust Memorial Day, takes place on Sunday and this year will be dedicated to the memory of Haining, who was murdered in 1944 aged 47.

The march will be led by the UK government’s Scottish secretary, David Mundell, who welcomed “the recognition of her sacrifice and dedication to the youngsters she worked with”, noting that it may be testament to Haining’s own modest character that her story has only gradually come to national attention in her home country.

Haining’s niece, Deirdre MacDowell, described the honour as wonderful, saying: “It seems her name is remembered more and more, and with it that ordinary people can and do make a difference.”

Haining was posthumously awarded a Hero of the Holocaust medal by the UK government in 2010, while two stained glass windows bear tribute to her “service and sacrifice” at her former church in Queen’s Park, Glasgow.

Dunscore cottage in Dunscore, Dumfries and Galloway, where Haining grew up. Photograph: Church of Scotland/PA

A heritage centre at the church in the village of Dunscore, where she spent her early years living on the family farm, was opened in January 2018, and includes artefacts such as her will, her last letter from Auschwitz and a cherished book of wildflowers, which she won as a school prize and took with her to Budapest.

When Haining was arrested by the Gestapo, after Nazi troops entered Budapest in March 1944, she was the only foreigner left working at the mission, having ignored countless orders and entreaties to return home to safety.

She wrote: “If these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness?”

Although MacDowell never met her aunt, her mother – Haining’s half-sister – told her she had a great sense of loyalty. “My mother always said she would have been overwhelmed by the attention,” MacDowell said. “She was a shy person, one of those people who worked in the background and she did her duty diligently.”

Miller describes a talented and adventurous young woman, who first gained a bursary to board at Dumfries academy, then went on to study and work in Glasgow, making the most of the social changes and opportunities for women brought about by the first world war.

As a boarder at school, says Miller, Haining already had a reputation for mothering other children. The girls she cared for in Budapest, many of whom were orphans, felt dearly loved by her, although she was strict “and always made them wash their neck and eat their dinner”.

While acknowledging Haining’s strong faith and sense of duty, Miller also reflects upon her sense of fun. “She was always putting on little celebrations and shows for the children. When she was first arrested, she spent a few weeks in the city jail with some other women, and she organised a fashion parade decked out in rags, with a commentary in German that had them in fits of laughter.”

Haining was taken from her cell at 5am the following day. “The other women thought that she would be going somewhere easier and better because she was Scottish, but that was not to be.”

Haining with girls from the Scottish Mission school in Budapest. Photograph: Church of Scotland/PA

The Rev Aaron Stevens, of St Columba’s Church of Scotland, which stands next to the former site of the Scottish Mission school in Budapest where Haining worked, says: “The fact that she was encouraged to return home to safety but refused speaks volumes about her. We’re not talking about someone who was trained all along that they might have to make difficult decisions. I don’t think that she knew that events would unfold as they did. She helps us expand our ideas of what heroes look like.

“Seventy-five years on from her death, antisemitism is still something we can witness in Hungary or the UK. When we commemorate we are also reminding ourselves where these trends can lead. And we remind ourselves that the voices of prejudice can be disproportionately loud. When we gather together and march we realise there are lots of us who still appreciate humanity.”