Page 11 - TORCH Magazine - Issue #20

During WW2, the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine) were burdened with a desire to help Jews in Europe who were being persecuted at the hands of the Nazis. Though they had little in the way of armed forces, the Yishuv made a deal with the British government to send troops behind enemy lines and assist resistance groups in Nazi-occupied Europe.
The Yishuv sought to recruit a small group of trained operatives to carry out the perilous mission, and so began a recruitment drive. Out of 250 candidates, 32 were selected, 29 men and three women, including Hannah Szenes.
Hannah parachuted into
Yugoslavia as part of a small team
with a mission to assist resistance
fighters in Yugoslavia and Hungary.
While in Yugoslavia, the Nazis
invaded Hungary making the latter
part of their mission too dangerous
to complete. The rest of her team stayed in Yugoslavia, but Hannah was determined to enter Hungary to find her mother and rescue her fellow Jews. While her bravery was admirable, her decision proved fatal. Shortly after infiltrating into Hungary, Hannah was captured.
Her Hungarian captors discovered
her British radio transmitter, which she used to communicate with others in her unit. A code was needed to operate the device and Hannah knew that if she told them, her colleague’s locations would be exposed, and their mission foiled. Hannah was taken to a prison, stripped, tied to
a chair, then whipped and clubbed for three days. She was badly injured and lost several teeth due to the beatings, but she never revealed more information than her name.
Two weeks later, on 28 October 1944, Hannah Szenes was tried for treason
and executed by firing squad. Despite suffering in brutal conditions, Hannah used her last few weeks on earth to do all she could to resist her captors. She used a mirror to flash morse code signals to other prisoners and communicated using
cut-out letters that she placed in her cell window one at a time. She also drew Stars of David in the dust as a symbol
of defiance and to encourage other prisoners.
Beyond her heroism, Hannah Szenes was a poet and a playwright who kept a diary until the day she died.
In her final poem, composed moments before her death, she wrote:
I gambled on what mattered most,
The dice were cast, I lost.
Hannah’s story is tragic. She died having never fulfilled her mission. Had she stayed home, Hannah would likely have witnessed the rebirth of Israel, which was her greatest desire. However, if she had stayed home, maybe the power of her writing would never have been realised.
Because of her heroism, her writings became her legacy. Her poems have been turned into songs and her stories have been made into plays; all recited and enjoyed by generations of children growing up in Israel and by Jews around
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