The people of Budapest, of Israel, and many Jewish people know about the young hero, Hannah Szenes (anglicized as Senesh). But many non-Jewish have little to no awareness of her bravery during World War II. Born to Béla and Katherine in Budapest, Hungary, on July 17, 1921, Hannah led a tragically short but remarkable life of courage and conviction.
Early Life
They were an assimilated Jewish family. Her father, Bela Szenes, was a well-known journalist and playwright. He died when she was six years old, leaving her mother to raise Hannah and her brother, György.
She dictated her thoughts about his death to her grandmother. It was her first poem. She continued to write poems about other children and how happy they were.
Education
Her mother enrolled her in a Protestant private school for girls that accepted Catholic and Jewish pupils. But as a non-Protestants they paid triple the usual enrollment fees. When Hannah’s mother decided the school was too expensive, the school declared Hannah was a gifted student and only had to pay double the enrollment fee.
At thirteen, Hannah started a regular habit of writing in a diary. Later, her classmates elected her president of the school’s literacy society, but she lost the position when growing anti-Semitism disallowed Jews from any leadership roles.
The Birth of a Zionist
The anti-Semitic sentiment in Budapest made life precarious for Jews. Hannah wrote in her diary about learning what it meant to be a Jew in a Christian society. She wrote, “You have to be someone exceptional to fight anti-Semitism.”
Her brother left for university in France. Later, he made it to Israel and briefly reunited with Hannah.
At seventeen, she joined Maccabea, a Hungarian Zionist youth movement and began learning Hebrew. She wrote that she’d become a Zionist because she was consciously and strongly feeling her identity as a Jew and that her primary aim was to go to Palestine (Israel) and work for it.
Graduation and Emigration
She graduated at the top of her class in 1939. Despite her teachers’ attempts to get her to go to university, Hannah decided to emigrate to Eretz Yisrael in order to study in the Girls’ Agricultural School at Nahalal. Hannah was eighteen.
In 1941 she joined Kibbutz Sdot Yam. While there, Hannah wrote a play about life in a kibbutz and a variety of poetry as well. She tried, unsuccessfully, to get emigration papers for her mother to leave Hungary. And she desperately wanted to help Jews in Europe.
A Dangerous New Thing
Hannah joined the Haganah, the paramilitary group that laid the foundation of the Israel Defense Force. She took classes in wireless communications. She wrote her mother on December 26, 1943, that she was starting something new. “Perhaps it’s madness; perhaps it is dangerous.” She wrote something commanded her to it “even at the price of one’s life.” Jewish agency officials asked her to join the clandestine military operation called Palmah.
She enlisted in the British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force as an Aircraftwoman 2nd Class in 1943. Later that year, Special Operations Executive (SOE) recruited her and sent her to Egypt for parachute training.
A little later in that year, the Jewish community decided to send Jewish parachutists behind enemy lines to assist the Allied forces and the Jews in occupied Europe. Their mission was a cooperation between the Yishuv and British forces to create a Jewish commando unit within the British army. Ultimately, they were to contact and rescue Jews in Hungary. Hannah volunteered. She was one of 33 out of 250 candidates and one of only three women selected. Hannah was twenty-two.
Yugoslavia
On March 14, 1944, she and two colleagues parachuted into Yugoslavia. They spent three months with Tito’s partisans. She wrote a poem of idealism and commitment to the cause called, “Blessed is the Match,” during this time. Hannah was twenty-two.
Hannah and her companions continued to the Hungarian border during the height of the mass deportation of Hungarian Jews. On June 7, 1944, they crossed the border.
Arrest
At the border, Hungarian gendarmes arrested her. According to one source, they arrested her because they found her British military transmitter. Another source said an informant gave her away. They took her to a prison, stripped her, and tied her to a chair. For three days, they whipped and beat her with a club. Her captors wanted the code for her transmitter so they could find and capture other parachutists. She refused to provide the code.
They transferred her to a prison in Budapest. Again, they interrogated and tortured her. They arrested and threatened to kill her mother. Still, Hannah only revealed her name, not the transmitter code. Never the code.
Trial
They tried her for treason on October 28, 1944, in a closed military tribunal appointed by the fascist Arrow Cross regime. After two postponements, the judges fled the country. It didn’t help. One man sentenced Hannah to death. During her trial, she defended her actions and refused to ask for clemency.
She wrote diary entries until her last day.
Death
On November 7, 1944, she refused a blindfold, stared squarely at the firing squad that killed her. Hannah was twenty-three.
Hannah was one of seven parachutists who died out of the thirty who braved the mission. We know very little about the others. We know about Hannah through her mother and her diary entries.
After her execution, they found the following poem in her cell.
One – two – three… eight feet long
Two strides across, the rest is dark…
Life is a fleeting question mark
One – two – three… maybe another week.
Or the next month may still find me here,
But death, I feel is very near.
I could have been 23 next July
I gambled on what mattered most, the dice were cast. I lost. – Hannah Szenes
Her mother was put on a death march to Austria the week after Hannah’s execution. Somehow, her mother survived and eventually made it to Israel.
Legacy
In 1950, they brought Hannah’s remains (along with the other six parachutists’ bodies) to Israel and buried in the cemetery on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem.
According to Wikipedia, her diary was published in Hebrew in 1946. The Jewish Virtual Library states the publication date came after 1950. There is a book on Amazon called Hannah Senesh, Her Life & Diary, that has a publication date of 1972.
After the Cold War, a Hungarian military court officially exonerated her. Her kin in Israel were informed on November 5, 1993.
Her tombstone was brought to Israel in November 2007 and placed in Sdot Yam.
Hannah’s best known poem is “A Walk to Caesarea”, commonly known as Eli, Eli (“My God, My God”). The well-known melody was composed by David Zahavi. Many singers have sung it, including Ofra Haza, Regina Spektor, and Sophie Milman. It was used to close some versions of the film Schindler’s List. She has also been the subject of a play by Aharon Megged.
There is a film of Hannah’s life, “Blessed is the Match.”
Streets and public squares are named after her throughout Israel.
Courage and Conviction
Hannah Szenes was an amazing young woman. Her courage and conviction held up under extremes.
If I have even half the courage and conviction Hannah had when I am faced with such a choice, I will be proud. Could you make the choice Hannah did?
References
Image Credits
Featured image: עברית: אין מידע, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Second image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Third image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fourth image: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Final image: ארכיון חנה סנש, CC BY 2.5 , via Wikimedia Commons
