Szenes was arrested at the Hungarian border by Hungarian gendarmes. She was imprisoned and tortured, but refused to reveal details of her mission. She was eventually tried and executed by firing squad.[2] She is regarded as a national hero in Israel but has largely been forgotten in her birthplace of Hungary according to The Guardian.[3] In Israel her poetry is widely known and the Yad Hana kibbutz, as well as several streets, are named after her.
Early life
Szenes and her brother in Budapest c. 1924
Szenes was born in Budapest on 17 July, 1921, to an assimilated Jewish family in Hungary. Her father, Béla, a well known journalist and playwright, died when she was a child. She continued to live with her mother, Catherine, and her brother, György.[4]
She enrolled in a Protestant private school for girls that also accepted Catholic and Jewish pupils; however those of the Catholic and Jewish faiths had to pay double and three times the amount Protestants paid. After her mother thought it was too expensive, Szenes was declared a "gifted student" and allowed to only pay double the usual amount.
Between 1943 and 1944, the Jewish community in Palestine (Yishuv) decided to send Jewish parachutists behind enemy lines to assist both Allied forces and the Jews in occupied Europe. The mission was a cooperation between the Yishuv and British forces to create a Jewish commando unit within the British army. Szenes volunteered and was selected along with 32 others, out of 250 candidates, to be sent on active missions.[7]
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. She 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 beatings.[8]
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 tortured, but 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 refused.[2]
Trial and execution
Memorial and bust of Hannah Szenes in Budapest
She was tried for treason in Hungary on 28 October 1944 by a court appointed by the fascist Arrow Cross regime.[9] 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 on November 7, 1944.[10]
She kept diary entries until her last day. 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."[2]
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.[11][12] Her tombstone was brought to Israel in November 2007 and placed in Sdot Yam.[13]
During the trial of Rudolf Kastner, who was a controversial figure[14] involved in negotiating with the Nazis to save a number of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, Szenes's mother 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."[15]
After the Cold War, a Hungarian military court officially exonerated her. Her kin in Israel were informed on November 5, 1993.
Poetry, songs and plays
Szenes was a poet and playwright, writing both in Hungarian and Hebrew. The best known of these 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.
Images
Szenes in Budapest, c. 1937
Szenes with members of Kibbutz Sdot Yam. (4th from left)
Szenes in a Hungarian army uniform as a Purim costume
Blessed is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh, directed by Roberta Grossman, is a documentary film that recounts the events of Szenes's life. It was released in 2008.[16]
Darkness (one two three), a musical pilot project of the Association of Global Art, led by the musician and singer Pazit Nuni [he], in which Szenes's last poem was composed and sung (English and Hebrew, 2019).
Romanian composer Serban Nichifor released the song cycle "Four Poems by Hannah Szenes" for soprano and piano (2023).[17]
^ abcdeHecht, 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.
Diario, cartas, iniciación literaria, misión y muerte, memorias de la madre, 1966. in Spanish. 396 pages.
Hannah Senesh, Her Life & Diary, Schocken Books, 1972.
Masters, Anthony. The Summer That Bled; The Biography of Hannah Senesh. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1972. OCLC677086
Goldenberg, Linda. In Kindling Flame: The Story of Hannah Senesh, 1921–1944. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1985. ISBN0688027148OCLC10302495
Hay, Peter. Ordinary Heroes: Chana Szenes and the Dream of Zion. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1986. ISBN0399131523OCLC13395114
Whitman, Ruth. The Testing of Hannah Senesh Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1986. ISBN0814318533
Maxine Rose Schur, Hannah Szenes: A Song of Light, Philadelphia, 1986. ISBN0827606281
Betzer, Oded. The Paratrooper Who Didn't Return. World Zionist Organization, 1989.
Ransom, Candice F. So Young to Die: the Story of Hannah Senesh. Scholastic, 1993. ISBN0590446770OCLC28137831
Senesh, Hannah, and Marge Piercy (foreword). Hannah Senesh: Her Life and Diary. Jewish Lights Publishing, 2004. ISBN9781580233422OCLC269444258
Gozlan, Martine, Hannah Szenes, l'étoile foudroyée. Paris: Ed. de l'Archipel, 2014. ISBN9782809815818OCLC897806840 In French.
Shalom, Avner, Hannah Senesh, Poems within the Depth, שירים מן המעמקים, The Association of Global Art Publishing House, Budapest and Caesarea 2018 ISBN9786150033730 in English and Hebrew, appendix A and B in Spanish and Lithuanian
Laqueur, W.; Baumel, J.T.; Baumel-Schwartz, J.T. (2001). The Holocaust Encyclopedia. The Erwin and Riva Baker Memorial Collection. Yale University Press. ISBN978-0-300-08432-0. Retrieved July 17, 2021.
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