Today marks the 80th anniversary of the death of Hannah Senesh ( חנה סנש) who was executed by Hungarian Nazis on November 7 1944.
Hannah Senesh was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1921. Embracing Zionism from an early age, Senesh experienced severe antisemitism in high-school, leading her to immigration to the land of Israel in 1939 in her teens.
A gifted poet, Senesh composed poems in Hebrew and Hungarian while working on Kibbutz Sdot Yam before joining the Haganah and the British Women's Auxiliary Air Force. Senesh was then recruited for the Special Operations Executive and was sent to Egypt for parachute training.
The Yishuv, the Jewish community in the land of Israel, joined the war effort against the Nazi. In 1943, its leadership organized a group of 37 paratrooper – a Jewish commando unit formed under the aegis of the British army – on missions to Nazi occupied Europe.
Senesh was the only woman in the unit, which was dropped into Yugoslavia in mid-March 1944, to rescue Hungarian Jews, including some of her own family member who were on the verge of being sent to their deaths in Auschwitz.
Shortly after crossing the border, Senesh was arrested by Hungarian gendarmes. After enduring months of brutal torture – during which Senesh refused cooperate – Hannah Senesh was executed by firing squad on November 7th, 1944.
Her remains were transported to Israel in 1950 where she was buried with full military honors in the paratrooper section on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
Today, Senesh is regarded as a national hero in Israel and in the Jewish diaspora. Her name and poetry are known to almost every school child in Israel, where several streets are also named after her.
Among her most famous poems are:
Stars
There are stars whose radiance is visible on earth though they have long disappeared.
There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living.
These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark.They light the way for humanity.
Blessed is the Match
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling the flame
Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart
Blessed is the heart with the strength to stop beating for honor’s sake
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling the flame
Halicha L’Caesarea (Eli, Eli)
Oh Lord, My God—Oh Lord, my God,I pray that these things never end:
The sand and the sea,
The rush of the waters,
The crash of the heavens,
The prayer of the heart.
On the March of the Living, the legacy and memory of Hannah Senesh are honored each year the students return to Poland. Most recently, on the 2024 March of the Living, Eli, Eli was performed by Israeli singer, Noa Kirel, a third generation to Holocaust survivors. Over 60 members of the Kirel family perished on the grounds of Auschwitz.
