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The daughter of Katherine and Bela Szenes. Her father well known author and dramatist. She started a diary at the age of 13 and continued it until she was executed. She left behind the poems, songs, and entries about her life, what she was thinking, and what was going on around her.

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The Real Hannah Senesh: Honoring a Jewish Hero

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It was 70 years ago this week, according to the Hebrew calendar, that a young Jewish girl named Hannah Senesh was executed by firing squad by the Hungarian-Nazi police force.

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Hannah volunteered to be paracuted into enemy lines and aid anti-nazi forces. She was one of 32 people picked out of 240 men and women.

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Hannah Szenes (Senesh) (1921-1944)

During World War II, more than 30,000 Jews from Palestine volunteered to fight in British units. Some served in Allied campaigns in North Africa, Greece, and Italy, while others undertook missions deep inside German-occupied territory. Through such service, they hoped to contribute to the defeat of Nazi Germany and to aid in the rescue of their fellow Jews in Europe.

In 1943, British authorities agreed to create special commando units composed of European-born Jews who would be dropped into the Balkans and elsewhere on the continent. They would aid the anti-Nazi partisans, rescue downed Allied airmen, collect intelligence data, and assist their fellow Jews as much as they could. About 240 men and women recruited from the Haganah (the Jewish military underground in Palestine), the British Army, and various Zionist youth groups undertook intensive training for the dangerous missions. In the end, only 32 parachutists were sent to Europe, where they operated in Yugoslavia, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Italy, and Austria. Though few in number, the Jewish parachutists from Palestine fought bravely with partisans in Yugoslavia, took an active part in the Slovak National Uprising, and helped save Jewish lives. Of the 32 men and women, 12 were captured, and 7 of the 12 were subsequently executed.

Among the group of valiant Jewish fighters was twenty-three-year-old Hannah Szenes, an ardent Zionist and gifted poet who left her native Hungary in 1939 to live in Palestine. Born in 1921 in Budapest, she was greatly influenced by the artistic talents of her father and several other members of her family, among whom were poets, writers, and musicians. In September 1939 Szenes immigrated to Palestine where she began her studies at Nahalal Agricultural School and later joined Kibbutz Sedot Yam, near Caesarea. As news of the Holocaust spread, she became concerned about the fate of European Jewry and of her mother in Budapest. In 1943, she left the safety of the kibbutz to join the newly formed group of parachutists.

After training in Egypt, Hannah's unit was dropped into Yugoslavia in March 1944. The group, composed of 4 men-including Yona Rosen-and Szenes, spent about 3 months with Tito's partisans. Days after arriving, they learned that German troops had occupied Hungary, and that hundreds and thousands of Jews were in mortal danger. With her mind on her former homeland, she penned the moving poem, "Ashrei ha-Gafrur" (Blessed is the Match), which she gave to one of her fellow parachutists.

Soon after writing the poem, Szenes and a few comrades began a dangerous trek through German-patrolled forests. She finally crossed into Hungary on June 9, 1944-the peak of the deportation of Hungarian Jewry. Shortly afterward she was captured with a radio transmitter in her possession.

In her nearly five months in prison, Hannah Szenes was brutally tortured, but refused to give her interrogators any useful information. She was brought to trial in a Hungarian court and was convicted of "treason against Hungary." On November 7, 1944, Hanna Szenes was executed by a firing squad in a Budapest prison courtyard.

In 1950 her remains were brought to Israel and interred on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. Her legacy has continued to be an inspiration for Israelis and for people around the world.

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During World War II, more than 30,000 Jews from Palestine volunteered to fight in British units. Some served in Allied campaigns in North Africa, Greece, and Italy, while others undertook missions deep inside German-occupied territory. Through such service, they hoped to contribute to the defeat of Nazi Germany and to aid in the rescue of their fellow Jews in Europe.

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She gave people she helped the hope they needed to keep fighting. No matter what Hannah never gave up even faced with her mother who she hadn't seen in 5 years. The hope and courage people took away from her poems is incredible because she may have been gone but, she was still shining light on peoples lives and giving them courage to fight back and the hope they need to know it would be over soon.

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Her legacy still lives on even though she isn't here with us today. The courage she had to not be blindfolded and to not give up any information even when face with family leaves people speechless. The hope she had that the war would end soon is unimaginable. When people read her poems they can get a sense of what it felt like to be in the dangerous situations she was and to feel that much emotion at one time.

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"In my life's chai of events nothing was accidental. Everything happened according to an inner need"

"To die,
So young to die.
No, no, not I,
I love the warm sunny skies,
light, song, shining eyes,
I want no war, no battle cry,
No, no, not I."

"There are stars who radiance is visible on Earth even though they have been long extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world even though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind."

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Hannah was executed after being  convicted of "treason against Hungary" She chose not to be blindfolded when getting shot by the firing squad in order to lookher murderers in the moments before her death.

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Eli Eli - Hannah Szenes Senesh - Sang in Hebrew & English - Holocaust Remembrance

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When Hannah was 13 she started keeping a diary up until the day she died. In the diary she wrote stories, poems, and entries of what she was going through that day. Hannah took the writing skill after who father Bela Szenes who unfortunately died when she was a child. The final message she wrote to her comrades in her diary says, "Continue on the way, don't be deterred. Continue the struggle till the end, until the day of liberty comes, the day of victory for our people." She was giving her comrades the hope and courage they needed to finish the war and to win it for the Jewish people who lost their lives already.

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Hannah Szenes (Hungarian spelling), a heroine-poetess of Israel, was born in Budapest in 1921, but her life was cut short by the horrors of World War II, before she reached the age of 23. Her father, Bela Szenes, was famous as a journalist and playwright. He died when Hannah was only 6 years old. Her assimilated, middle-class Jewish background did not allow for a meaningful Jewish education. But she excelled in poetry and composition in the local public school, and it was there that she received an introduction to one of the harsh realities of life: anti-Semitism. She attended a Protestant girls' high school, where one of her teachers, in one of life's great ironies, was the Chief Rabbi of Budapest, Imre Benoschofsky, who was an ardent Zionist. Under Benoschofsky's influence, Hannah joined Maccabea, a Zionist youth group in Hungary. In 1938, a diary entry reads, "I've become a Zionist. This word stands for a tremendous number of things. To me it means, in short, that I now consciously and strongly feel I am a Jew, and am proud of it. My primary aim is to go to Palestine."

Her application for admission was accepted by the Girls' Agricultural School in Nahalal. In her first letter to her mother, she wrote, "I am home!...Here almost every life is the fulfillment of a mission." In 1941, she joined the Haganah (Jewish Self-Defense Organization). In 1942, with World War II raging, she wanted desperately to return to Hungary to organize Youth Aliyah (emigration to Palestine) and to help her mother escape Hitler's closing net. The first woman volunteer to join the parachutist group, Hannah joined the British Royal Air Force and began training for a mission to parachute behind enemy lines. The purpose of the mission was to help assist British airmen who'd been shot down. But for the Jewish volunteers, there was an additional, and even more urgent purpose; namely, to assist their People in their plight.

In June of 1944, she parachuted into Yugoslavia, and crossed the Hungarian border with the aid of a partisan group. There she was very quickly captured by the Germans, and imprisoned in Budapest. She was tortured in order to reveal her secret communication code, but never did. The following description was written concerning her behavior in that crucible of fire: "Her behavior before members of the Gestapo and the SS was quite remarkable. She always stood up to them, warning them plainly of the bitter fate that awaited them after their defeat... Curiously, these wild animals, in whom every spark of humanity had been extinguished, felt awed in the presence of this refined, fearless young girl." Hannah was convicted of treason, following which she made an eloquent and moving speech to the court, protesting her innocence and the great injustice that was being done to her People, but she was executed nonetheless by a firing squad. Her remains, together with those of 6 fellow paratroopers killed in Europe, were transferred for re-burial as heroes, to the military cemetery on Har Herzl in Jerusalem.

One of her poems is:

"L-rd my G-d, I pray that these things never end;
The sand and the sea, the rush of the waters,
The crash of the heavens, the human prayer."

A Diary Entry (9/17/38):

"We're living through indescribably tense days. The question is: Will there be war?...No news concerning the discussions of Hitler and Chamberlain... The devil take the Sudeten Germans and all the other Germans, along with their Fuhrer. One feels better saying these things. Why is it necessary to ruin the world, turn it upside-down, when everything could be so pleasant. Or is that impossible? Is it contrary to the nature of man?"

Diary Entry 6/14/41

"This week I leave for Egypt. I'm a soldier. Concerning the circumstances of my enlistment, and my feelings in connection with it, I don't want to write. I want to believe that what I've done, and will do, are right. Time will tell the rest."

Time has told the rest. Her courage and devotion to her People in Israel and in Europe have made her a legend, and have added her name to the ranks of her sisters who have contributed to the survival of her People.

Her final message to her comrades:

"Continue on the way, don't be deterred. Continue the struggle till the end, until the day of liberty comes, the day of victory for our People."

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Hannah Szenes (Hungarian spelling), a heroine-poetess of Israel, was born in Budapest in 1921, but her life was cut short by the horrors of World War II, before she reached the age of 23. Her father, Bela Szenes, was famous as a journalist and playwright. He died when Hannah was only 6 years old.