Ms Smith (64), who grew up in Invercargill and attended the University of Otago, is pleased with the response to her book From Matron to Martyr, which is to be translated into Hungarian for publication in Hungary where activists will use it as an education tool about the Holocaust.
She is touring New Zealand giving talks on the book, which tells the story of her distant relative, Jane Haining.
The book has a Dunedin connection through the Rev Dr George Knight, who was the director of the Church of Scotland's mission in Budapest until the war forced him to leave with his family.
Dr Knight moved to New Zealand after the war, and lectured at Knox College and the University of Otago.
He lived in Dunedin until his death in 2002 aged 93.
A Church of Scotland missionary, Ms Haining was matron of a girls' school in Budapest. When the church called its missionaries home to Scotland in 1940 Ms Haining refused.
''She said 'the children need me now more than they've ever needed me before'.''
She was seized by the Gestapo in 1944 after Germany invaded because Hungary appeared ready to switch sides.
She died in Auschwitz, Poland, about four months after her arrest.
The proportion of Jewish girls at the school grew as the Holocaust claimed their parents.
''Her love for those Jewish children was so much she was prepared to die for them.''
Lynley Smith, who is based in Snells Beach north of Auckland, visited Israel, Scotland, Hungary and Auschwitz to research the book, which was published last year.
She is working with a Hungarian group using the story in Holocaust education.
''All over Europe the right-wing nationalist parties are becoming quite strong again. They are neo-Nazi, so the whole thing is bubbling away again.
''Unless there's a healing of the nation this whole thing will repeat.''
Ms Smith will give a public talk at the Dunedin Central Library on December 5 at 6pm.
