Excerpt:
Hannah Senesh might have been 90 years old today, had she lived past the age of 23 when she was convicted of treason and executed by a German firing squad. Although a Hungarian Jew that had emigrated to Palestine, she returned to Europe to take part in a dangerous military plan to rescue Jews from Hungary. She kept a beautifully-written diary from the age of 13 until the day of her death, and, to this day, it is widely read in Israel, where she is a national heroine.
Hannah Szenes, often anglicised to Senesh, was born in Budapest on 17 July 1921, the daughter of playwright Bela Senesh (who died when Hannah was about six) and his wife Katherine. She wrote plays for school productions, and developed a considerable talent for poetry. She attended a Protestant high school which accepted Jews, where one of her teachers was the Chief Rabbi of Budapest, an ardent Zionist. As a result of his influence, she joined a Zionist youth group, and then moved to study at an agricultural school in Palestine.
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