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Hannah Szenes (often anglicized as Hannah Senesh or Chana Senesh; Hebrew: חנה סנש‎; Hungarian: Szenes Anikó; July 17, 1921 - November 7, 1944) was one of 37 Jews from Mandatory Palestine parachuted by the British Army into Yugoslavia during the Second World War to assist in the rescue of Hungarian Jews about to be deported to the German death camp at Auschwitz.

Szenes was arrested at the Hungarian border, then imprisoned and tortured, but refused to reveal details of her mission. She was eventually tried and executed by firing squad. She is regarded as a national heroine in Israel, where her poetry is widely known and the headquarters of the Zionist youth movements Israel Hatzeira, a kibbutz and several streets are named after her.

Szenes was born on July 17, 1921, to an assimilated Jewish family in Hungary. Her father, Béla Szenes, a journalist and playwright, died when she was six years old. She continued to live with her mother, Catherine, and her brother, György (Giora).

She enrolled in a Protestant private school for girls that also accepted Catholic and Jewish pupils; most of those of the Jewish faith had to pay three times the amount Catholics paid. However, Senesh only had to pay twice the regular tuition because she was considered a "Gifted Student". This, along with the realization that the situation of the Jews in Hungary was becoming precarious, prompted Szenes to embrace Zionism, and she joined Maccabea, a Hungarian Zionist students organization.

Szenes graduated in 1939 and decided to emigrate to what was then the British Mandate of Palestine in order to study in the Girls' Agricultural School at Nahalal. In 1941, she joined Kibbutz Sdot Yam and then joined the Haganah, the paramilitary group that laid the foundation of the Israel Defense Forces. In 1943, she enlisted in the British Army in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force as an Aircraftwoman 2nd Class and began her training in Egypt as a paratrooper for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE).

On March 14, 1944, she and colleagues Yoel Palgi and Peretz Goldstein were parachuted into Yugoslavia and joined a partisan group. After landing, they learned the Germans had already occupied Hungary, so the men decided to call off the mission as too dangerous. Szenes continued on and headed for the Hungarian border. At the border, she and her companions were arrested by Hungarian gendarmes, who found her British military transmitter, used to communicate with the SOE and other partisans. Hannah was taken to a prison, stripped, tied to a chair, then whipped and clubbed for three days. She lost several teeth as a result of the beating. The guards wanted to know the code for her transmitter so they could find out who the parachutists were and trap others. Transferred to a Budapest prison, Szenes was repeatedly interrogated and cruelly tortured, but she only revealed her name and refused to provide the transmitter code, even when her mother was also arrested. They threatened to kill her mother if she did not cooperate, but she held firm (and probably saved her mother's life as a result).

While in prison, Szenes used a mirror to flash signals out of the window to prisoners in other cells and communicated using large cut-out letters that she placed in her cell window one at a time and by drawing the Magen David in the dust. She tried to keep their spirits up by singing, and through all the things Szenes went through she still kept her spirit high and stayed true to her mission.

She was tried for treason on October 28, 1944. There was an eight-day postponement to give the judges more time to find a verdict, followed by another postponement, this one because of the appointment of a new Judge Advocate. She was executed by a firing squad. She kept diary entries until her last day, November 7, 1944 when she was executed by a German firing squad. One of them read: "In the month of July, I shall be twenty-three/I played a number in a game/The dice have rolled. I have lost," and another: "I loved the warm sunlight."

Her diary was published in Hebrew in 1946. Her remains were brought to Israel in 1950 and buried in the cemetery on Mount Herzl, Jerusalem. Her tombstone was brought to Israel in November 2007 and placed in Sdot Yam.

During the trial of Rudolf Kastner, Hannah's mother, Catherina Senesh, testified that during the time her daughter was imprisoned, Kastner's people had advised her not to obtain a lawyer for her daughter. Further, she recalled a conversation with Kastner after the war, telling him, "I don't say that you could have saved my daughter Hannah, but that you didn't try - it makes it harder for me that nothing was done."

After the Cold War, a Hungarian military court officially exonerated her. Her kin in Israel were informed on November 5, 1993.

Szenes was a poet and playwright, writing both in Hungarian and Hebrew. The following are four of her better known poems. The best known of these is Halikha LeKesariya ("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 :

The following lines are from the last poem she wrote, "Ashrei Hagafrur", after she was parachuted into a partisan camp in Yugoslavia:

,אַשְׁרֵי הַגַּפְרוּר שֶׁנִּשְׂרַף וְהִצִּית לֶהָבוֹת

.אַשְׁרֵי הַלְּהָבָה שֶׁבָּעֲרָה בְּסִתְרֵי לְבָבוֹת

...אַשְׁרֵי הַלְבָבוֹת שֶׁיָדְעוּ לַחְדוֹל בְּכָבוֹד

.אַשְׁרֵי הַגַּפְרוּר שֶׁנִּשְׂרַף וְהִצִּית לֶהָבוֹת

Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.

Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart.

Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor's sake.

Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.

The following lines were found in Hanna's death cell after her execution:

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.

A film about Szenes' life entitled was released in 1988 and directed by Menahem Golan. She was portrayed by actress Maruschka Detmers.

1. ↑ Hecht, Ben. Perfidy, first published by Julian Messner, 1961; this edition Milah Press, 1997, pp. 118-133. Hecht cites Bar Adon, Dorothy and Pessach. The Seven who Fell. Sefer Press, 1947, and "The Return of Hanna Senesh" in Pioneer Woman, XXV, No. 5, May 1950.

2. ↑ Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh (2008)

3. Baumel-Schwartz, Judith Tydor (2010). . ↑ Perfect heroes: the World War II parachutists and the making of Israeli collective memory. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 30. ISBN 978-0-299-23484-3 http://books.google.com/books?id=3_KNdfB3vrgC&pg=PA204&dq=%22Hannah+Szenes%22#v=snippet&q=firing%20squad&f=false.

4. ↑ Tombstone of WWII poet and spy Hannah Szenes arrives in Israel Haaretz, 25 November 2007

Atkinson, Linda. In Kindling Flame: the Story of Hannah Senesh. Beech Tree Books, 1992.

Hay, Peter. Ordinary Heroes: Chana Szenes and the Dream of Zion. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1986.

Ransom, Candice F. So Young to Die: the Story of Hannah Senesh. Scholastic, 1993.

Senesh, Hannah, and Marge Piercy (foreword). Hannah Senesh: Her Life and Diary. Jewish Lights Publishing, 2004.

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Hannah Szenes (often anglicized as Hannah Senesh or Chana Senesh; Hebrew: חנה סנש‎; Hungarian: Szenes Anikó; July 17, 1921 - November 7, 1944) was one of 37 Jews from Mandatory Palestine parachuted by the British Army into Yugoslavia during the Second World War to assist in the rescue of Hungarian Jews about to be deported to the German death camp at Auschwitz.

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In 1950 hannah senseh  were brought to Israel and re-interred at the military cemetery a place called jerusalem.

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The Heroism of Hannah Senesh - Eli, Eli by Sophie Milman, 2014 March of the Living

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Some of her quotes was

There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. and My god,My god.“In my life's chain of events nothing was accidental.

Blessed is the match, consumed in kindling flame.

Blessed is the flame that burns in the heart's secret places.

Blessed is the heart that knows, for honors sake, to stop its beating.

I could been 23 next July.

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What my impact my life is to be more nicer to people and help people if they really need it. I really love to help people become someone here one day ,and the way that she help rescue the Jews and she was known as the heroine so that's what something I want to change.

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One of the more poignant songs included in many Holocaust memorial convocations held in Israel, is a short poem, set to music, known popularly as "Eli, Eli." The four-line poem, actually entitled "Walking to Caesarea," was written by one of the more mythological figures in contemporary Jewish and Israeli history, Hannah Senesh (Szenes), whose short life and death have propelled her into the pantheon of Zionist history.

Hannah Senesh was born in Budapest on July 17, 1921, to a wealthy, distinguished, and assimilated Hungarian Jewish family. Her father, Bela Senesh (1874-1929), who died when she was a child, had been a well-known writer and dramatist and her mother, Katharine, an elegant homemaker. Having been given a modern Hungarian education, Senesh was exposed to anti-Semitism during her high school years, propelling her to learn more about her Jewish origins. It was at that time that she discovered the Zionist movement, joining a Zionist youth movement and learning Hebrew in preparation for immigration to Palestine.

In 1939, after finishing her high school studies, Senesh came to Palestine to study at the girls' agricultural school in Nahalal, continuing the diary that she had begun in Hungary. Having completed a two-year course in agriculture, Senesh joined the Sedot Yam kibbutz at Caesarea. Her choice was motivated by the preference of maintaining an anonymous status, rather than being known as "the daughter of Bela Senesh," something that would have been likely had she joined one of the kibbutz groups whose members were primarily of Hungarian origin. Senesh worked in the kitchen and in the kibbutz laundry, and the difficulties that she encountered are echoed in her diary.

In Palestine

In 1943 Jewish Agency officials made overtures towards Senesh to join a clandestine military project whose ultimate purpose was to offer aid to beleaguered European Jewry. The young immigrant, who became a member of the Palmah (the pre-State assault companies of the Haganah), first studied in a course for wireless operators, and in January 1944 participated in a course for paratroopers.

Before leaving Palestine she met with her brother Giora who had just arrived from Europe-the sole surviving member of her immediate family other than her mother-and the two spent the afternoon together on the shores of the Mediterranean, bringing each other up to date with personal and family news.

In mid-March 1944 she and several other Palestinian-Jewish volunteers (most of whom were also of European origin) were dropped into Yugoslavia in order to aid the anti-Nazi forces until they would be able to commence their true mission and enter Hungary. The German invasion of Hungary in March 1944 postponed their plans, and Senesh crossed the border to her former motherland only in June of that year.

Imprisoned in Hungary

Captured within hours of having stepped on to Hungarian soil, she was sent to prison in Budapest where she was tortured by Hungarian authorities in the hope of receiving information regarding Allied wireless codes. Within days of entering Hungary, her two co-parachutists were also captured, unaware of Senesh's whereabouts. Only one of them-Yoel Palgi-was to survive the war.

When the Hungarian authorities realized that Senesh would not be broken, they arrested her mother and the two women came face to face with each other for the first time in almost five years. Katharine Senesh had no idea that her daughter had left Palestine-not to speak of the fact that she was now in Hungary. Initially shocked as they brought in the young woman with bruised eyes and who had lost a front tooth in the torture process, she rapidly regained her composure, and both mother and daughter refused to give the authorities the performance that would lead to the information they had sought.

For three months the two women were near yet far, sharing the same prison walls but unable to catch more than short glimpses of each other. In September 1944, after Katharine Senesh was suddenly released, she spent most of her waking hours seeking legal assistance for her daughter, who-being a Hungarian national-was to be tried as a spy.

In November 1944 Hannah Senesh came up before a tribunal and eloquently pleaded her own cause, warning the judges that as the end of the war was nearing, that their own fate would soon hang in the balance. Convicted as a spy, Senesh was sentenced to death, although the court had decided not to carry out the sentence with alacrity.

Put to Death

However, her poignant speech during the trial was taken as a personal affront by the officer in charge, Colonel Simon, who came into her cell on the morning of November 7th and presented her with two options: to beg for a pardon, or to face death by a firing squad.

Refusing to beg clemency from her captors, whom she did not consider legally permitted to try her case, Senesh penned short notes to her mother and her comrades and went to her death at age twenty-three in a snow-covered Budapest courtyard, refusing a blindfold in order to face her murderers in the moments before her death. Her body was buried by unknown persons in the Jewish graveyard at Budapest.

Katharine Senesh, who escaped from the infamous Budapest "Death March," hid in that city until its liberation by the Soviet forces in January 1945. Having immigrated to Palestine where she joined her surviving child, Giora, she became an instrumental part of the Hannah Senesh legend, based on her daughter's courageous life and death, brought to public knowledge by fifteen editions of her daughters diary, poetry, and plays, that have since been published in Hebrew.

In 1950 Hannah Senesh's remains were brought to Israel where they were buried in the "Parachutists' section" in the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. In the same year a kibbutz was founded and called in her memory.

Reprinted from Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia with permission of the author and the Jewish Women's Archive.

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One of the more poignant songs included in many Holocaust memorial convocations held in Israel, is a short poem, set to music, known popularly as "Eli, Eli." The four-line poem, actually entitled "Walking to Caesarea," was written by one of the more mythological figures in contemporary Jewish and Israeli history, Hannah Senesh (Szenes), whose short life and death have propelled her into the pantheon of Zionist history.

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Hannah Senesh: A Jewish Paratrooper & Poet

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She was excuted by a firing squad on november 7.i dont understand how badly she got treated and got killed cause she was an very nice person and she also cared about other people.She was almost caught by the hungarion police and tourtored on and on and on and on for several months.

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Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents on topics from anti-Semitism to Zionism.

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Hannah senseh was an paratrooper trained and was to rescue jews in the holocaust.Sadly jumped out the plane to rescue her fellow jews she was killed and captured  and tortored by the nazis on Novmember 7. On june 7th 1944 at the height of the deportation of the hungartion jews.She also crossed the border she was trying to help the allied efforts in the country europe.During world war 2 more than 30,000 jews from palestine volunteered to fight in the  british units.

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Hannah senseh was born on july 17,1921 she was born in Budapest, Hungary.Her dad bela szenes (senseh) died when she was just a child,and her mom was an elegant home maker.She have been going to school to get alot of education and been in high school for many years.She came to Palestine to study for an girls agriculture school.She loves to be nice to other people also and she always was an big hero she was only 22 years old when she got killed.