"Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send?
And who will go for Us? Then I said, Here I am; send me."
(Isaiah 6:8)
"In the mountains one involuntarily hears the query: "Where shall I send you?"
And the answer, "Send me to serve the beautiful and the good."
-Hannah Szenes
Hannah Szenes was a young woman who was one of 37 Jewish men and
women living in pre-Israel Palestine recruited by the British to be members
of the RAF's Special Operation Executives (SOE). They trained to be
parachuted behind enemy lines in order to locate and rescue downed
British pilots in German-occupied eastern Europe between 1943 and 1945.
After not hearing from her mother, Hannah was determine to use her position
in special operations to rescue her family and other Jews in her native Hungary,
who were facing deportation to Auschwitz and other German death camps.
While trying to cross the Hungarian border, she and her companions were arrested by
Hungarian gendarmes (military police) who discovered her British military transmitter,
used to communicate with the SOE and other partisans. She was taken to a prison,
stripped and tied to a chair, horribly beaten, and tortured for three days.
Although she lost several teeth during her ordeal, she refused to
confess to her torturers the code for her transmitter.
She was later transferred to a prison in Budapest, again to be repeatedly
abused because she would not divulge this information. Even when
her mother was arrested and threatened with death, Hannah
still refused to cooperate with her tormentors.
On November 7, 1944 Hannah Szenes was executed by a firing squad, having
been found guilty of treason against Hungary. She was just 23 years old.
In 1993, the Hungarian military supreme court reversed Hannah's conviction
for treason and her death sentence, and cleared her name of any wrongdoing.
"I gambled on what mattered most, the dice were cast. I lost."
-Hannah Szenes
You did not lose, Hannah. Your name has lived on as a symbol of
your courage and resilience for the sake of "the beautiful and the good."
Hannah Szenes was a born poet, and one of her last works,
"Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame" reveals her
selflessness of heart in regards to her love for and defense of
Israel and her fellow Jewish people.
She gave her friend Reuven Dafni this poem on the evening before she was
scheduled to cross the Yugoslavian border into Hungary. She told him:
"If I don't come back, give this to my friends in Sedot Yam."
"Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.*
Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart.
Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor's sake.
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame."
Hannah Szenes
( 2 May, 1944)
"Comfort, Comfort My people, says your God.
(Isaiah 40:1)
Image courtesy/Shuttershock
Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem and the Salvation of Israel.
Maranatha!
*Poem courtesy Yad Vashem
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