Through her brief but noteworthy life, Senesh became a symbol of
idealism and self-sacrifice. Her poems, made famous in part because of her
unfortunate death, reveal a woman imbued with hope, even in the face of
adverse circumstances.
Senesh (born July 17, 1921; died November 7, 1944) was born in Budapest, Hungary as the daughter of an author and journalist. She demonstrated her own literary talent from an early
age, and she kept a diary from age 13 until shortly before her death.
Although her family was assimilated, anti-Semitic sentiment in Budapest
led her to involvement in Zionist activities,
and she left Hungary for Eretz Yisrael in 1939. She studied
first at an agricultural school, and then settled at Kibbutz Sdot Yam.
While there she wrote poetry, as well as a play about kibbutz life.
In 1943, Senesh joined the British Army and volunteered to be parachuted into Europe.
The purpose of this operation was to help the Allied efforts in Europe
and establish contact with partisan resistance fighters in an attempt
to aid beleaguered Jewish communities. Senesh trained in Egypt and was
one of the thirty-three people chosen to parachute behind enemy lines. With
the goal of reaching her native Budapest, Senesh parachuted into Yugoslavia in March
1944, and spent three months with Tito’s partisans.
Her idealism and commitment to her cause are memorialized in her poem
“Blessed is the Match,” which she wrote at this time.
On June 7, 1944, at the height of the deportation of Hungarian
Jews, Senesh crossed the border into Hungary.
She was caught almost immediately by the Hungarian police, and
tortured cruelly and repeatedly over the next several months. Despite these conditions, Senesh refused
to divulge any information about her mission. Even the knowledge that her mother was at
risk and that she too might be harmed did not compel Senesh to cooperate
with the police. At her trial in October 1944, Senesh staunchly
defended her activities and she refused to request clemency. Throughout
her ordeal she remained steadfast in her courage, and when she was executed
by a firing squad on November 7, she refused the blindfold, staring
squarely at her executors and her fate. Senesh was only 23 years old.
The following poem was found in Hannah'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.
In 1950, Senesh’s remains were brought to Israel and
re-interred at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
Her diary and literary
works were later published, and many of her more popular poems have been set to music. The best known of these is “Towards Caesarea," more popularly known today as "My God, My God" with a melody created by David Zahavi and sung by artists including Ofra Haza, Regina Spektor, and Sophie Milman.
Senesh has also been the subject of several artistic works, including a
play by Aharon Megged.
