Clubbed and Beaten, the Poet Who Died a Hero

A Zionist tale

Hannah Szenes. Image from The Times of Isreal.

In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, I take a look back on a Zionist who was a force for good and helped shape Israel the way it is today. This is a true story about Hungarian poet, Hannah Szenes (1921-1944).

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It had been three long months of torture.

Each time the Nazis tried to break her, she refused to give in. Hannah Szenes remained defiant. Even after they dragged her mother in for questioning, she still wouldn’t break. Kneeling before the sadistic officer, Colonel Simon presented her with two choices. Beg for mercy or be shot. She chose death.

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¹ My God, My God, I pray that these things never end,
The sand and the sea,
The rustle of the waters,
Lightning of the Heavens,
The prayer of Man.

The voice called, and I went.
I went, because the voice called.
-Eli Eli by Hannah Szenes (1942)

Bela Szenes never imagined life would come to this. Father to Hannah, Bela Szenes was a celebrated playwright and respected columnist. He was about as prominent as a Jew could get in Hungary, a poster child for assimilation. His life in Hungary was good. In 1927, at the age of 33, Bela would die without witnessing the Jewish Bill of 1938 being passed into law.

From a well-to-do family, Hannah received a modern Hungarian education. The family wasn’t practicing Jews and even less so after the passing of Bela. It wasn’t until high school that Hannah was exposed to antisemitism. At first confused, she decided to learn more about Judaism which inevitably led her towards Zionism.

Hannah would spend two years in Palestine studying agriculture. A diarist from the age of 13, her thoughts and ideas are well documented. By the time she returned to Hungary, the country was in the grips of Nazism. The first ‘Jewish Law’ had been passed which decreed that only 20% Jewish representation was allowed in the economic fields.

The ‘expansion of the Jews’ was seen as detrimental to the nation’s health.

A second ‘Jewish Law’ was passed in 1939. This time it was the intellectual Jews that had to be chaffed to 6%. Commerce and industry were 12%. Jews could no longer be Members of Parliament and fight their case. They were also banned from becoming judges, teachers, and lawyers.

As Hungary continued to descend into antisemitism, Hannah joined the Haganah, the paramilitary group that laid the foundation of the Israel Defense Forces. She was proud to represent the Jewish nation. By 1943 she was recruited into the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and was sent to Egypt for parachute training.

“‘Till we meet again — soon, I hope, in enemy territory.”

Hannah asked Reufen Dafne for a cyanide capsule. It was to be her first mission and Hannah was nervous. He looked at Hannah and refused. The pair were parachuted into Yugoslavia and were due to cross the Hungarian border. Dafne believed if he gave her the pill, then their mission was doomed to fail. He had concerns about them crossing that day but nothing would stop Hannah.

Moments after crossing the border into Hungary, Hannah was captured. The local gendarmes had discovered her British military transmitter. Her fellow parachutists were also captured. Only one of them would survive the war.

She was immediately transferred to a prison in Budapest. It would be three grueling months of torture before the authorities trialed her for treason. They wanted the allied codes but Hannah never caved in. At one point, the sadistic guards dragged in Hannah’s mother who still believed her daughter was studying safely in Palestine. Her mother, Katherine, was shocked at the sight of Hannah. Battered and missing teeth from being repeatedly clubbed by the interrogators, Katherine quickly composed herself refusing to answer their questions.

Both women stayed strong, never once giving up more than their names.

² 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
-One, Two, Three by Hannah Szenes (1944) was written in her cell.

The trial was a joke.

It was a kangaroo court comprised of fascists and wannabe Nazis. As a Hungarian national, Hannah was tried for treason. Astonishingly, the court would take over eight days to reach a verdict. She was sentenced to death but not before she delivered an eloquent speech to the judges about the war ending and the judges facing their judgment.

That morning, November 7th, Colonel Simon entered Hannah’s cell. He was visibly angry and frustrated. News had come over the wire that the weather was so bad that there was a deadlock in the fighting⁴. A blizzard had hit the city. Everything had ground to a halt.

And now Simon had to deal with an uppity Jewess who had the nerve, the affront, to dare question the judges with her speech. He would not allow her to talk to her superiors like that.

He wanted to see the Jew beg for mercy. The sadistic Colonel presented her with two choices. Beg or be shot. Hannah, defiant to the end, spat out her answer — “No!”

Colonel Simon stormed out. Hannah had just enough time to pen a few letters to her mother and comrades before she was led out to the firing squad.

Outside, a layer of snow covered the ground. The courtyard looked beautiful. Serene. A sense of calm washed over her as she stood before the firing squad. The Colonel approached with methodical precision. In his hand, he carried a blindfold. He would offer her this small mercy. After the beatings, the torture, and the loss of teeth, he wanted to show that he wasn’t heartless.

Hannah once more refused. She wanted to look her executioners in the eye. She wouldn’t beg for mercy and wasn’t about to look away.

At the age of 23, Hannah Szenes was executed.

Today, Hanah is a celebrated heroine and poet in Israel. Her legacy lives on in her poetry and writing. In 1950, her body was moved to Isreal and laid to rest on Mount Herzel in the ‘Parachutists’ section.

³ “There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth
though they have long been 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.”
-Hanah Szenes

References

1. Times of Israel (December 22 2010). Eli Eli https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/poems-by-hannah-senesh/

2. Times of Israel (December 22 2010). One, Two, Three https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/poems-by-hannah-senesh/

3. Ritualwell.org (2021). There Are Stars https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/poems-by-hannah-senesh/

4. Trove (2021). Weather Causes Deadlock in the Battle of Budapest https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/49551858

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