Hannah Szenes was a Zionist hero. Born in Hungary in 1921 to a wealthy and assimilated family, after experiencing antisemitism she became a Zionist and made aliyah to Palestine, arriving in 1939.
In 1943, she approached the Jewish Agency to see if she could help the resistance movements in Europe. She was trained as a paratrooper and dropped into Yugoslavia in March 1944 to assist anti-Nazi forces and to aid in the rescue of Hungary’s Jews. She was one of 33 people sent on active missions in an initiative with the British to create a joint commando unit within the British army.
Szenes was captured shortly after crossing the border into Hungary and held as a prisoner in Budapest. The authorities tortured her to disclose the code to the transmitter she carried so that the Hungarians could trap others, but she would not break, even after her mother was arrested …