WEBVTT

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I am asked repeatedly,
how did it happen?

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How can it be that I am alive

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despite the profound suffering,
the terrible pain,

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the danger of death
that hovered over me?

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Those who ask know, of course,

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that I am the mother of Hannah Senesh.

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They have heard of her
mission and her tragedy.

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They have read her diary and the
writings of her parachutist companions,

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There were however,
certain events in her life

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to which I was the most intimate witness.

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So it seems right, as her mother,
that I should record them.

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From earliest childhood, Hannah\'s
playmate was her brother Giora.

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Their nursery was a wellspring of
happiness for my husband and myself

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and for “Fini Mama” - Hannah\'s
grandmother who lived with us.

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Hannah and Giora were born into a
bourgeois middle class Jewish family

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where there was governess,
there was a maid.

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This is a picture of a little
girl getting up in the morning and

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having her clothes laid out for her

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and having her breakfast set out for her.

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She was most definitely used
to having things done for her.

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Her father was a playwright,
a Bohemian, a newspaper man.

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Bela Senesh had eight plays produced in
Budapest by his early thirties.

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Being the child of Bela Senesh meant that
you really had a cushioned entry into

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Hungarian society in general and into
Hungarian Jewish society in particular.

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Budapest had a very,
very strong Jewish culture.

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It\'s not just the doctors and the lawyers,
but it\'s also all the newspaper people,

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most of the writers, most of the
musicians. This was a completely

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urban assimilated society
where you happen to be Jewish.

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My husband attempted to provide
Hannah and Giora

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with as many rich and happy memories
as possible.

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But their happy childhood
ended in may of 1927,

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when a heart attack snatched their
father from them.

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He was only 33.

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Giora was seven, Hannah barely six.

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Hannah reacted to the loss of her father
by writing poems.

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Since she was only
in first grade

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and uneasy using pen and ink,
she dictated these poems to

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her grandmother who recorded them

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in beautiful script.

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Oh, all you happy children,

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How I\'d love to be with you,

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to join your merry laughter,
as your happy life begins.

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Hannah started writing her
first diary when she was 13.

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They provide a wonderful window into
a young girl\'s hopes and dreams.

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October 7th, 1934.

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I\'m now five feet tall
and weigh 99 pounds.

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I don\'t think I\'m considered
a particularly pretty girl,

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but I hope I\'ll improve.

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When you read Hannah\'s diary, just as
when you read Anne Frank\'s diary,

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you\'re struck by the everyday
concerns of a young girl who is just

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viewing the world for the first time.

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I guess I was born to be a philosopher

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because in all things
I see life in miniature.

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In the day, in the river,
in the seasons.

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I am always thinking of life and death.

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November 18, 1934. Giora found my
diary and read the entire thing.

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I was furious because he
constantly teased me about it.

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If we scolded Giora for his unruly
behavior, Hannah defended him.

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Mother, you are totally
unfamiliar with

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the psychological factors involved
in the development of a young boy.

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August 29, 1935.

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This morning,
we went to the cemetery.

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I can see no point in
going such a long way,

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merely to stand before
daddy\'s grave for a few moments.

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I always feel he is with me.

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I would like to be worthy
of him as a writer, too.

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When Hannah was about to enter
fifth grade, the new quarters

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of a prestigious Protestant girls\'
school opened close to our house.

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Although Jewish students had to
pay triple the normal tuition,

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I decided to enroll Hannah.

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In 1937,

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Hannah was elected to a post in
the school\'s literary society.

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But at the very first meeting
Hannah was told

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that a new election
was already scheduled,

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because Jewish students
were not allowed to hold office.

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Had I not been elected,
I would not have said a word,

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but this way
it was a decided insult.

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Only now am I beginning
to see what it really means

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to be a Jew in a Christian society.

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The rise of anti-Semitism in Hungary
was a tremendous blow for her.

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She truly believed that she
was fully Hungarian,

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fully accepted, and all of a sudden

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Hannah Senesh is
the Jew Hannah Senesh.

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The anti-Semitism of
Germany became infectious.

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In Hungary, there began to be a series
of discriminations against the Jews.

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First Jewish law of 1938 imposed
restrictions on the percentage

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of Jews in professions

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and consequently it led
to dismissal of thousands,

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if not tens of thousands,
of Jews from their jobs.

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When her brother Giora was approaching
graduation in Hungary,

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it became clear that
with the increasing antisemitism,

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he would not be able
to go to university.

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So Mrs. Senesh decided

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that Giora should go to France.

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It was only then that I realized

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what it means
to have Giora leave home

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without knowing
what will become of him

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or when he will be able to return.

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Among Giora\'s classmates

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there were a few Arrow-Crossers.

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He asked them to look after mother and me
if there should be any trouble.

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In Hungary, the fascist party
was called the Arrow Cross.

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The Arrow Cross modeled
itself and emulated the Nazi party.

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It\'s horrible how everyone believes
there will be trouble,

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and naive to think these boys
would do anything for us.

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At the age of 17,

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Hannah wrote in her diary about a
radical change of direction in her life.

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October 27, 1938.
I\'ve become a Zionist.

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People, events, times have
all brought me closer to the idea.

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One needs something to believe in,
to feel that your life has meaning.

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Zionism fulfills all this for me.

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I now consciously and
strongly feel I am a Jew,

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and am proud of it.

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The creator of modern political Zionism
was man by the name of Theodore Herzl.

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Herzl had a unique perception that anti-semitism
was endemic to the European continent,

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and he proposed a solution,

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which was the establishment of
a Jewish state on Jewish land

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with Jewish sovereignty.

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To make the Jews a nation
like any other nation

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in the historic homeland of
the Jewish people,

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the country that was
then called Palestine.

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Israel appeared

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as a blue sky, as a new horizon,

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full of everything

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that you wish to have in your life.

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Freedom

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and pride and independence.

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So this was very powerful.

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My aim is to go to
Palestinian, to work for it.

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One hears many arguments
against Zionism,

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but I\'m convinced it\'s the
only solution to Jewry\'s problems,

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and that the outstanding work being
done in Palestine is not in vain.

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In 1920, there\'d been a small Jewish
community in Palestine - 80,000.

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By 1939 there were nearly half a million.

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Most of them from Central Europe,
Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia,

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a vibrant community,

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very exciting.

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Building, creating,

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not just orange groves,
but creating cities and industry.

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No one could envision the scope
of competing nationalisms,

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Arab nationalism and Jewish nationalism.

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Nor the duration of the struggle of two
people to control one land.

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But to someone like Hannah Senesh,

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Palestine offered the vision
of an alternative to the impending doom

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that was facing the Jews of Europe.

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The thought that now occupies my every
waking moment is Palestine.

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Even school has lost
some of its meaning.

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The only thing
I\'m studying hard is Hebrew.

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Only gradually did Hannah acquaint me
with her plans to emigrate to Palestine.

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I was strongly opposed.

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March 10, 1939.

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I\'m sending off my application to the
Girls\' Agriculture School at Nahalal.

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I wrote it in Hebrew.

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When I brought up the most disputed
question between us -

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that if she must go to Palestine,
why to agricultural school?

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Why not to the university?

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Hannah said: There are already far
too many intellectuals in Palestine.

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The great need is for workers
who can help build the country.

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Try to imagine what it\'s like for
somebody like Catherine Senesh.

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Her only daughter comes
to her and says, \"Mother,

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I\'m leaving, comma,
for Palestine, comma,

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to become a farmer.\"

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July 21st, 1939.

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I\'ve got it -
the certificate of immigration.

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I have no feeling other than
overwhelming happiness,

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but I can understand that

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mother can\'t see the matter as I do.

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She is filled with conflicting emotions.

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At the beginning of September,
World War II broke out.

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All roads to Palestine
were apparently closed,

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but Hannah would not give up.

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She ran to travel agencies,

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to the official
representative of Palestine.

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Finally, she attached herself to a
group of Palestine-bound Slovaks.

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She would have to leave
the very next day.

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I felt as though ice were
flowing through my veins.

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Hannah and I packed all night.

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Truly, Mother, that moment,

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I forgot all my dreams

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and felt only the pain of parting
with you for a very long time.

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Palestine.
September 23, 1939.

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I have been here four days.

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A little boy is climbing up the
olive tree directly behind me;

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in front of me are Cypress trees,

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the Emek Valley.

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I am in Nahalal, in Eretz.

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I am home.

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From the autumn of 1939
to the spring of 1941,

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there was a steady flow of
letters from Hannah in which she

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described her life in Palestine.

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January 10, 1940.
Dearest mother,

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I\'m really enjoying my work!

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When dressed in trousers, boots or
rubber apron, I wash down the cows.

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I\'m not a bit afraid of them.

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In this I\'m not your daughter!

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You look most impressive,
my dear little one,

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as you bravely hold that cow.

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I\'m glad you\'re on such
friendly terms with animals.

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Mother, the manure trolley is
a sensational contraption.

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Everything works automatically.

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But even so, quite a bit
of work remains for us.

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As soon as we
got to the dung heap,

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I sank so deep that I
could barely pull my boots out.

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This is Hannah Senesh?

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This is the girl who
got top marks in school

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and all of a sudden she\'s
going to be mucking out cow sheds?

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Dearest Giora,
I want to be honest.

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This work doesn\'t have
just a romantic side.

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When I hoe, or clean something,

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or wash dishes, or scatter the manure,

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I must confess the thought
strikes me that I could be putting

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my abilities to better use.

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I\'m fine, but I really
miss you and mother.

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April 20, 1940.

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I would like to write about
the boy question.

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Yesterday, I went to a concert.

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I watched the faces and thought the one
I\'ve been looking for might be there,

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and that we would pass
one another without realizing it.

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Or perhaps he is so far away
that we will never meet.

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But I\'m too much of an optimist
to really believe this.

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May 28, 1940.
My darling Anikó.

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Mom thinks I might be able
to get an emigration

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certificate to Palestine in July.

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I hope it\'s not too late by then.

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I\'m sorry you haven\'t found
a decent guy out there.

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When I get there, I\'m going to
go after the girls big time.

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My plan is to populate the Land.

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Giora wrote to Hannah about having parties
and drinking and having a good time,

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as any young man would at that age.

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And this carried on until the
German invasion of France.

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June 29th, 1940. Communications with
Giora have been cut off completely.

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Perhaps he\'ll still be able
to leave and join me here.

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I study the face of every
young man, secretly hopeful.

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I can\'t feel a thousandth part of
what Mother must now be living through.

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My correspondence with Hannah continued
while Hungary remained neutral in the war.

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But after November, 1940,
when Hungary joined with Germany,

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Hannah\'s letters
arrived with decreasing frequency.

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By the following summer Hannah\'s
letters ceased entirely and were

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replaced by Red Cross telegrams,
which were restricted to 25 words.

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September 8, 1941.
Dearest Mother, on last day of school,

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Sending you most heartfelt thanks.

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Going to kibbutz.

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Don\'t worry.

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I was not at all worried.

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My gratitude that Hannah was in
the safest possible place grew

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with the gathering of
ominous clouds over Hungarian Jewry.

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I think a lot about my
mother and about my brother.

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I have a dreadful fear

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I\'ll never see them again.

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March 2, 1942.

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My dear,

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I must confess that I envy those
families that decided not to separate.

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I don\'t want to cause grief.

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I know it\'s hard for you, too.

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Mother writes that she\'s well.
Only her hair has turned a bit gray.

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One question keeps tormenting me.
Was coming here and leaving her behind

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an act of unmitigated selfishness?

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Sometimes I feel an overwhelming
obligation to the Land of Israel,

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to do something great and important
for it in order to justify having

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left my mother alone in Budapest.

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I hear singing from the dining hall,
a party for the members

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of the Youth Movement, but I
have no desire to join them.

00:25:35.702 --> 00:25:37.412
Really this is absurd.

00:25:37.829 --> 00:25:39.122
Nothing I do make sense.

00:25:40.249 --> 00:25:44.670
I need people, people who are akin to
me in thought and spirit.

00:25:44.878 --> 00:25:47.339
It\'s not even people I need,
but just one person.

00:25:49.091 --> 00:25:52.678
She couldn\'t share anything
with no one at the kibbutz.

00:25:54.514 --> 00:25:57.849
She didn\'t have a friend,
a boyfriend or something.

00:25:58.392 --> 00:26:02.104
She has no one here
close, really close to her.

00:26:05.525 --> 00:26:10.112
She had such a dynamic and
creative life in her.

00:26:10.195 --> 00:26:11.780
Outside, there was kind of a desert.

00:26:12.114 --> 00:26:16.285
I think the real things that were
happening were happening inside her.

00:26:18.245 --> 00:26:20.956
Could I meet one who understood all...

00:26:21.331 --> 00:26:24.418
without word, without search,

00:26:24.876 --> 00:26:28.422
Confession or lie,
without asking why.

00:26:29.006 --> 00:26:32.801
I would spread before him,
like a white cloth,

00:26:33.218 --> 00:26:38.015
the heart and the soul...
the filth and the gold.

00:27:39.326 --> 00:27:42.287
God-May there be no end

00:27:42.954 --> 00:27:46.958
to sea, to sand,

00:27:47.459 --> 00:27:52.172
Water\'s splash, Lightning\'s flash,

00:27:52.590 --> 00:27:53.965
the prayer of man.

00:28:31.378 --> 00:28:33.463
In December, 1942,
the first Jews

00:28:33.589 --> 00:28:37.635
who had had some
experience of the Shoah

00:28:37.677 --> 00:28:41.054
reached Palestine, from Poland,
and from Central Europe.

00:28:41.930 --> 00:28:47.520
And every newspaper in Palestine
had a black border around it

00:28:47.562 --> 00:28:49.896
when the report was given that morning.

00:28:50.147 --> 00:28:52.567
Then it became clear that the deliberate

00:28:52.608 --> 00:28:55.444
mass murder of the Jews
was taking place in Europe.

00:28:56.153 --> 00:28:59.947
And this was a turning point for the Yishuv
because from that point,

00:28:59.948 --> 00:29:03.826
everybody in Palestine,
every Jew in Palestine knew that

00:29:03.827 --> 00:29:05.745
something had to be done,

00:29:05.746 --> 00:29:07.873
some effort had to be made.

00:29:56.922 --> 00:30:00.717
Darling Mother. At the moment,
there is a real possibility

00:30:00.718 --> 00:30:02.512
for you to come and join me.

00:30:03.220 --> 00:30:07.265
I know that this is very sudden,
but you must not hesitate.

00:30:07.974 --> 00:30:10.227
Every day is precious now.

00:30:18.401 --> 00:30:22.446
I had received word from Hannah
through secret channels, advising me

00:30:22.447 --> 00:30:27.034
that I should prepare to leave at a
moment\'s notice, but my immigration

00:30:27.035 --> 00:30:29.496
certificate failed to arrive.

00:31:14.332 --> 00:31:16.042
January 8, 1943.

00:31:17.878 --> 00:31:20.506
I\'m suddenly struck by the
idea of going to Hungary.

00:31:22.090 --> 00:31:26.678
I feel I must get there to help organize
youth resistance and to get my mother

00:31:26.679 --> 00:31:28.471
out and bring her here at any cost.

00:31:42.235 --> 00:31:43.235
A voice called.

00:31:43.696 --> 00:31:44.864
I went.

00:31:45.405 --> 00:31:47.365
I went for it called.

00:31:47.783 --> 00:31:49.492
I went lest I fall.

00:31:50.285 --> 00:31:51.286
At the crossroads,

00:31:51.787 --> 00:31:54.582
I blocked both ears with white frost.

00:31:55.290 --> 00:31:56.751
And cried for what I had lost.

00:32:07.553 --> 00:32:11.599
I understand why Moses received
the Torah on the mountaintop.

00:32:12.265 --> 00:32:13.265
In the mountains,

00:32:13.433 --> 00:32:16.436
one can believe - and must believe.

00:32:17.145 --> 00:32:19.940
In the mountains
one hears the question,

00:32:20.023 --> 00:32:21.983
\"Whom shall I send?\"

00:32:22.150 --> 00:32:23.527
And the answer,

00:32:24.027 --> 00:32:25.236
\"Send me.\"

00:32:41.169 --> 00:32:43.254
February 22, 1943.

00:32:44.464 --> 00:32:47.593
How strangely things work out.

00:32:48.009 --> 00:32:50.680
A few weeks ago, I wrote about
wanting to return to Hungary.

00:32:51.764 --> 00:32:52.764
A few days ago,

00:32:53.056 --> 00:32:56.226
a member of the Jewish military force,
the Haganah, visited the kibbutz.

00:32:57.394 --> 00:33:01.524
He told me that a unit was being organized
to do exactly what I\'d wanted to do.

00:33:02.440 --> 00:33:04.860
My answer, of course, was
that I\'m absolutely ready.

00:33:19.457 --> 00:33:22.085
At the beginning of January, 1942,

00:33:23.044 --> 00:33:27.298
80 percent of the Jews who were to die
in the Holocaust were still alive.

00:33:30.761 --> 00:33:35.098
Within 15 months, the
figures were reversed.

00:33:35.683 --> 00:33:40.437
80 percent of the Jews were dead and
only 20 percent were still alive.

00:33:45.025 --> 00:33:47.903
And the one living Jewish community

00:33:48.863 --> 00:33:55.578
that was alive and seemingly safe
was the Hungarian Jewish community.

00:34:05.253 --> 00:34:08.007
The Hungarian Regent,
Admiral Horthy, had twice refused

00:34:08.256 --> 00:34:11.301
Hitler\'s personal, face to face
demand that

00:34:11.719 --> 00:34:16.891
Hungarian Jews be
deported to death camps.

00:34:17.933 --> 00:34:19.602
There was nothing Hitler could do about it.

00:34:19.643 --> 00:34:21.311
He didn\'t have a single troop in Hungary.

00:34:22.437 --> 00:34:25.649
It stood out like a sore thumb, and
must have been enormously

00:34:25.858 --> 00:34:30.195
painful to the Nazis
to see that their final solution

00:34:30.361 --> 00:34:32.948
had taken root virtually everywhere

00:34:33.156 --> 00:34:35.910
except in this one Jewish community.

00:34:37.160 --> 00:34:40.038
Palestinian Jews were sitting in Palestine

00:34:40.039 --> 00:34:42.499
at this point, frustrated beyond belief.

00:34:43.793 --> 00:34:48.379
What was happening was at a
distance, but what was happening

00:34:48.547 --> 00:34:50.423
was happening to their families.

00:34:56.179 --> 00:34:59.517
The question becomes:
what can you do on their behalf?

00:35:00.810 --> 00:35:06.480
In March, 1943, the Jewish agency
of Palestine elaborated a plan

00:35:06.481 --> 00:35:12.862
to send volunteers to the Balkans,
to make contact with the existing Jewish

00:35:12.863 --> 00:35:17.076
communities and try to stir up
resistance against the Germans.

00:35:18.159 --> 00:35:23.624
At the same time, the British covert
organization needed agents who had

00:35:23.958 --> 00:35:29.003
local knowledge and had the language
capabilities to conduct clandestine

00:35:29.004 --> 00:35:30.589
operation in Southeastern Europe.

00:35:34.552 --> 00:35:37.303
The Yishuv comes up with a
plan that says as follows:

00:35:38.097 --> 00:35:41.891
We\'ve got people who speak the
language, who have the former

00:35:41.892 --> 00:35:43.727
citizenship, who know the territory.

00:35:44.061 --> 00:35:48.438
You need people to go in there and
to be your liaisons

00:35:48.439 --> 00:35:50.859
for various reasons, with the locals.

00:35:50.860 --> 00:35:52.360
You don\'t have the people to do it.

00:35:52.611 --> 00:35:54.195
We have the people to do it.

00:35:56.740 --> 00:36:01.662
Yugoslavia was beginning to be
one of Germany\'s most troubled

00:36:01.912 --> 00:36:05.206
occupied countries because there
were two Partisan movements there.

00:36:07.960 --> 00:36:13.006
So the idea was you parachute in Palestinians,
let them work their way through

00:36:13.007 --> 00:36:14.592
the Partisan areas of Yugoslavia.

00:36:17.468 --> 00:36:21.764
The parachuters would help the British
in their attempts to find escape routes

00:36:21.765 --> 00:36:25.685
for British air crews who\'d been shot down.
And then they would also have the

00:36:25.686 --> 00:36:27.520
mission to make contact with
Hungarian Jewry,

00:36:27.521 --> 00:36:29.648
find means of rescuing them,

00:36:29.857 --> 00:36:32.026
find means of stimulating resistance.

00:36:32.610 --> 00:36:34.277
Get to the Jews of Slovakia.

00:36:34.778 --> 00:36:37.990
Get to the Jews of Austria.
Try to make contact with endangered Jewry.

00:36:41.492 --> 00:36:46.039
250 people were earmarked for this
original mission of parachuting Jews

00:36:46.040 --> 00:36:51.211
into Europe. It was narrowed down and
some 30 odd people joined the mission.

00:36:56.175 --> 00:36:59.344
Hannah was one of three women who
were chosen to go on this mission.

00:36:59.929 --> 00:37:03.515
The other two were
Haviva Reik and Surika Braverman.

00:37:25.537 --> 00:37:33.003
Hannah was first sent to the British
parachute school, 50 miles from Haifa.

00:37:43.764 --> 00:37:44.640
It was very quick.

00:37:44.640 --> 00:37:45.640
It was ad hoc.

00:37:45.808 --> 00:37:48.475
But it was
a training nevertheless.

00:37:48.476 --> 00:37:51.813
And in Hannah\'s case, since she
was going to have to operate the

00:37:51.814 --> 00:37:56.735
radio, she was trained in operating
radios, code, signaling, reception.

00:37:59.113 --> 00:38:04.408
And because if you were caught being
parachuted into Germany or

00:38:04.409 --> 00:38:09.623
German-occupied Europe as a civilian, you
would be shot immediately as a spy,

00:38:10.207 --> 00:38:12.751
so the Palestinian parachuters were given

00:38:13.334 --> 00:38:16.630
rank in the Royal air force.
They became flight leftenants.

00:38:16.755 --> 00:38:18.507
They were given Royal air force uniforms.

00:38:22.511 --> 00:38:25.180
It\'s extremely difficult to send
somebody else to such a mision.

00:38:26.015 --> 00:38:28.726
Your first reaction is,
let me go.

00:38:29.810 --> 00:38:31.979
On the other hand,

00:38:32.104 --> 00:38:34.064
I knew many of them personally.

00:38:35.566 --> 00:38:37.693
They didn\'t wait to be sent.

00:38:38.902 --> 00:38:40.946
They volunteered.

00:38:47.619 --> 00:38:52.666
December 26, 1943,
Darling Giora.

00:38:53.000 --> 00:38:58.421
I\'m starting something new,
perhaps it\'s madness,

00:38:59.256 --> 00:39:00.257
perhaps it\'s fantastic.

00:39:01.884 --> 00:39:03.052
Perhaps it is dangerous.

00:39:04.385 --> 00:39:05.763
I wonder, will you understand?

00:39:07.222 --> 00:39:10.224
Will you believe that it is
more than youthful romanticism

00:39:10.225 --> 00:39:11.225
that attracted me?

00:39:12.770 --> 00:39:15.939
There are times when one is
commanded to do something,

00:39:16.815 --> 00:39:18.609
even at the price of one\'s life.

00:39:22.154 --> 00:39:23.614
It was the Eve of departure.

00:39:23.989 --> 00:39:25.115
We were all tense.

00:39:27.034 --> 00:39:30.329
The very day, the truck came to take
us on the first leg of our mission,

00:39:30.871 --> 00:39:34.374
The news reached Hannah that
the ship Nyasa was due in port,

00:39:35.334 --> 00:39:36.877
and her brother was on it.

00:39:40.172 --> 00:39:43.592
Again and again, I thanked Providence,
that Giora and I could at least meet,

00:39:44.760 --> 00:39:46.720
even though only for
such a very short time.

00:39:53.811 --> 00:39:58.731
My father told me that had he known
that she is about to embark on a mission

00:39:58.732 --> 00:40:03.570
like that, that he would do anything
he could to convince her not to go.

00:40:08.325 --> 00:40:14.123
The same day, one photographer just
took a photo in the street.

00:40:16.375 --> 00:40:21.713
And that\'s the last photo that
we have of Hannah with my father.

00:40:23.132 --> 00:40:26.260
That\'s what she left for him
to remember.

00:40:34.393 --> 00:40:37.395
The next day, Hannah set out on
her mission as a Haganah

00:40:37.396 --> 00:40:39.273
volunteer with the British army.

00:41:27.613 --> 00:41:30.323
Finally, they launch the operation

00:41:30.324 --> 00:41:34.119
at the night of the
13 and 14, March, 1944.

00:41:38.624 --> 00:41:41.877
I was nervous and scared.

00:41:42.878 --> 00:41:50.878
Mainly not so much scared of the jump,
but what was awaiting us when we land.

00:41:53.972 --> 00:41:57.184
As the green light came,
I did like that.

00:41:58.018 --> 00:42:01.188
And I remember Hannah doing this.

00:42:19.456 --> 00:42:22.251
We were expected by the Partisans

00:42:23.001 --> 00:42:25.212
so that was a great help.

00:42:26.588 --> 00:42:31.259
After walking for about four days
and nights, we were brought into

00:42:31.260 --> 00:42:33.845
the headquarters of the Partisan\'s Army.

00:42:39.059 --> 00:42:43.564
When we arrived,
we got the shock of our lives:

00:42:44.106 --> 00:42:46.526
The Germans entered Hungary.

00:42:52.823 --> 00:42:54.908
The chronology of the events is tragic.

00:42:57.077 --> 00:43:01.248
Hannah Senesh and her group
parachuted in on the 14th of March.

00:43:03.333 --> 00:43:06.378
Five days later, they learn
that on the 19th of March,

00:43:06.712 --> 00:43:11.758
the Germans have occupied Hungary.
Such a tiny window.

00:43:15.721 --> 00:43:20.309
The first time that I saw her cry.

00:43:20.851 --> 00:43:22.019
She cried,

00:43:22.562 --> 00:43:25.272
\"We are late, we are late.\"

00:43:26.315 --> 00:43:28.858
Once the Germans were in occupation
of Hungary, among other things,

00:43:28.859 --> 00:43:31.944
their documents would be meaningless.

00:43:31.945 --> 00:43:35.781
And suddenly a Jewish person who,
five days earlier,

00:43:35.782 --> 00:43:39.118
could have walked with her documents,
his documents, taken the train,

00:43:39.119 --> 00:43:40.999
traveled to Budapest
would not be able to do so.

00:43:41.330 --> 00:43:49.330
After about 15 to 20 minutes,
she was herself again, determined.

00:43:49.379 --> 00:43:51.506
And so she said,

00:43:51.507 --> 00:43:54.718
\"We have to find other
ways to get into Hungary.\"

00:43:58.013 --> 00:44:00.140
When the Germans occupied Hungary,

00:44:00.807 --> 00:44:05.102
all the humiliating, annihilating
laws it had taken the Nazis years

00:44:05.103 --> 00:44:09.858
to institute in other countries were
put into effect with fantastic speed.

00:44:10.734 --> 00:44:16.031
The compulsory wearing of the yellow
star struck us with paralyzing force.

00:44:16.740 --> 00:44:23.330
Arrests, deportations and suicides
marked each day of German domination.

00:44:25.666 --> 00:44:28.669
Ghettoization took place
in April and May.

00:44:29.419 --> 00:44:33.382
And between the 15 of May
and 8 of July,

00:44:33.633 --> 00:44:38.637
437,402 Jews were put on trains,

00:44:38.638 --> 00:44:41.264
mostly bound for Auschwitz.

00:44:41.306 --> 00:44:45.561
And the Final Solution was imposed
in all of the Provinces of Hungary.

00:44:46.186 --> 00:44:48.938
So nowhere in the
history of the Holocaust

00:44:48.939 --> 00:44:51.858
was the pace
of destruction so rapid.

00:44:52.359 --> 00:44:56.863
The startling thing to understand
is this happened in 1944,

00:44:57.030 --> 00:45:00.367
when everybody knew that
Germany was going to lose the war.

00:45:00.660 --> 00:45:04.829
Some areas in German-occupied Russia
were already liberated

00:45:04.830 --> 00:45:07.667
before the Holocaust began in Hungary.

00:45:09.376 --> 00:45:12.629
Now this took place in the provinces,

00:45:12.630 --> 00:45:15.757
and the last Jewish community
standing in Europe

00:45:16.174 --> 00:45:18.093
were the Jews of Budapest.

00:45:18.927 --> 00:45:23.181
And the Jews of Budapest were
essentially in a race against time.

00:45:28.186 --> 00:45:31.481
Old friends wanted me to
escape with them to Romania.

00:45:32.190 --> 00:45:35.819
Assuming it would be easy to make
our way from there to Palestine.

00:45:36.737 --> 00:45:41.074
I packed a few essentials,
but was uncertain what to do.

00:45:42.784 --> 00:45:45.663
At least I knew my children were safe.

00:45:47.873 --> 00:45:50.834
Hannah was unwilling to
listen to suggestions

00:45:51.001 --> 00:45:52.919
that she should delay
crossing the border,

00:45:53.336 --> 00:45:56.716
No matter how sound
and reasonable the advice.

00:45:57.174 --> 00:45:59.552
She had her own theory,

00:45:59.760 --> 00:46:02.722
\"We are the only ones who
can possibly help,\" she said.

00:46:02.763 --> 00:46:06.349
\"Even if the chances of our
success are minuscule,

00:46:06.559 --> 00:46:07.809
we must go.\"

00:46:09.352 --> 00:46:11.855
I don\'t want to spoil

00:46:12.690 --> 00:46:15.150
the image of our Joan of Arc,

00:46:20.322 --> 00:46:22.157
but I didn\'t like her.

00:46:24.284 --> 00:46:26.453
I admired her.

00:46:26.579 --> 00:46:29.331
I admired her courage,

00:46:29.372 --> 00:46:33.210
her determination, her stubbornness.

00:46:33.503 --> 00:46:35.795
You couldn\'t change her mind.

00:46:35.796 --> 00:46:37.214
Once she made it up,

00:46:37.964 --> 00:46:39.800
Nothing, nothing helped.

00:46:42.469 --> 00:46:43.804
There\'s no turning back for me.

00:46:45.681 --> 00:46:48.350
If I die, it won\'t have been in vain.

00:46:49.935 --> 00:46:51.603
Perhaps the Jews will hear a rumor

00:46:51.604 --> 00:46:54.105
that an agent from Palestine
tried to reach them.

00:46:54.898 --> 00:46:57.192
And they\'ll say, \"We have to hang on.

00:46:57.901 --> 00:46:59.027
Maybe rescue is near.\"

00:47:05.618 --> 00:47:09.120
On the 9 of June 44,

00:47:10.163 --> 00:47:14.292
I went with Hannah
toward the Hungarian border.

00:47:16.920 --> 00:47:23.009
I wasn\'t happy, but Hannah did not
want to wait anymore.

00:47:25.638 --> 00:47:26.471
Just before she crossed,

00:47:26.472 --> 00:47:28.932
Hannah Senesh handed
him some piece of papers,

00:47:28.974 --> 00:47:29.974
some poem she\'d written.

00:47:32.102 --> 00:47:35.564
And she said,
\"If I don\'t come back,

00:47:35.565 --> 00:47:40.485
please bring this to
the chaverim in Sdot-Yam.\".

00:47:42.530 --> 00:47:47.075
I was nervous like hell,
and I was tense.

00:47:48.952 --> 00:47:50.244
I said, \"What the hell?

00:47:50.245 --> 00:47:51.789
What is she doing here?

00:47:52.832 --> 00:47:54.583
In this situation,

00:47:54.584 --> 00:47:57.085
She writes me some,
some poems?\"

00:47:57.587 --> 00:47:59.796
There they were, the Germans
might attack them at any moment.

00:47:59.797 --> 00:48:00.877
He had to get back to base.

00:48:01.172 --> 00:48:02.842
So he threw it down into the bushes.

00:48:03.300 --> 00:48:06.386
And then went back,
and halfway back to the Partisan base,

00:48:07.513 --> 00:48:10.223
He suddenly thought, well,
perhaps I should retrieve it.

00:48:10.974 --> 00:48:14.352
And he told me what difficulty it had
been when he went back to find it.

00:48:14.895 --> 00:48:20.191
It took me about an hour
to find this piece of paper.

00:48:20.651 --> 00:48:21.984
But he found it,

00:48:21.985 --> 00:48:24.029
and that was
\"Blessed Is the Match.\"

00:48:27.908 --> 00:48:29.034
Blessed is the match

00:48:29.702 --> 00:48:31.244
Consumed in kindling flame

00:48:33.413 --> 00:48:35.205
Blessed is the flame

00:48:35.206 --> 00:48:37.543
that burns in the
secret fastness of the heart

00:48:39.670 --> 00:48:41.337
Blessed is the heart

00:48:41.338 --> 00:48:44.215
with strength to stop
its beating for honor\'s sake

00:48:47.093 --> 00:48:48.344
Blessed is the match

00:48:48.345 --> 00:48:50.848
consumed in kindling flame.

00:48:58.939 --> 00:49:00.733
Hannah Senesh understood

00:49:00.858 --> 00:49:03.360
small gestures can mean
very big things.

00:49:03.611 --> 00:49:06.613
That\'s what the poem
\"Blessed Is the Match\" is all about,

00:49:06.614 --> 00:49:08.072
about the one candle

00:49:08.073 --> 00:49:10.200
that can illuminate
the whole darkness.

00:49:10.826 --> 00:49:15.538
She understood what one person
can do against every odds

00:49:15.539 --> 00:49:17.875
and in the most
difficult circumstances.

00:49:55.913 --> 00:49:59.749
Hannah left Yugoslavia
with a team of four.

00:49:59.750 --> 00:50:03.085
There were two Hungarian Jews
in the team.

00:50:03.086 --> 00:50:06.841
Peter Kallos and a certain
Sandor Fleischmann.

00:50:07.298 --> 00:50:12.387
The fourth member was a French prisoner
of war, Jacques Antoine Tissandier.

00:50:15.306 --> 00:50:18.602
They aim to
cross the border at Drávaszilas.

00:50:19.687 --> 00:50:24.734
They knew a smuggler there, and they
wanted to use the smuggler\'s services

00:50:24.859 --> 00:50:28.445
to reach the next Hungarian town.

00:51:17.828 --> 00:51:19.495
The smugglers weren\'t home.

00:51:19.496 --> 00:51:22.082
Their wives and parents
begged us not to stay.

00:51:22.248 --> 00:51:24.043
The village wasn\'t safe.

00:51:24.209 --> 00:51:25.836
There were gendarmes from all over.

00:51:29.507 --> 00:51:31.215
On leaving the village,
Kallós and Fleischmann

00:51:31.216 --> 00:51:34.053
met some Hungarian gendarmes
who stopped them

00:51:34.595 --> 00:51:36.514
and although their papers were
quite in order,

00:51:36.722 --> 00:51:39.975
asked them to go with them
to the police station.

00:51:44.270 --> 00:51:48.650
Kallós had my revolver in his pocket.
One gendarme said to the other,

00:51:48.651 --> 00:51:50.861
\"We\'ll take him a bit farther
and let them go.\"

00:51:52.071 --> 00:51:55.156
Unfortunately, Kallós could not hear that.

00:51:55.699 --> 00:51:59.409
And when he realized that he left

00:51:59.410 --> 00:52:03.916
the headphones of the
radio set in his pocket,

00:52:04.834 --> 00:52:07.293
he committed suicide with a pistol.

00:52:09.337 --> 00:52:13.091
Suddenly Hannah and I realized
that we were surrounded

00:52:13.092 --> 00:52:17.178
by soldiers and frontier guards
with no means of escape.

00:52:20.516 --> 00:52:23.894
We were handed to the police,
wearing feathers in their caps.

00:52:25.311 --> 00:52:29.525
They shut us in a little cell,
dragging us there by the hair.

00:52:32.318 --> 00:52:33.945
Hannah tried to escape there.

00:52:33.946 --> 00:52:35.746
She ran out of the room
and ran up the stairs.

00:52:36.115 --> 00:52:39.827
But they caught her there and
they beat her very badly.

00:52:40.285 --> 00:52:42.830
Then the Gestapo showed up.

00:52:52.715 --> 00:52:58.136
They wanted the code of the radio
with which she was supposed

00:52:58.137 --> 00:52:59.889
to be in contact with us.

00:53:00.346 --> 00:53:03.517
She understood that if
she gives away the code,

00:53:03.809 --> 00:53:07.729
They can misuse it by giving,
on her code,

00:53:07.730 --> 00:53:10.608
the wrong messages
to the British army.

00:53:44.432 --> 00:53:49.437
We arranged that I will
be waiting for two weeks.

00:53:49.772 --> 00:53:53.357
If I don\'t hear
from her in two weeks,

00:53:53.358 --> 00:53:55.443
I know something happened.

00:53:56.570 --> 00:53:58.279
Well, I waited for four weeks.

00:53:59.280 --> 00:54:03.744
Hannah didn\'t reveal the code, but
her most awful test was yet to come,

00:54:05.037 --> 00:54:06.580
when they took her to Budapest.

00:54:23.304 --> 00:54:26.557
Her interrogator was a certain Rózsa,

00:54:26.558 --> 00:54:33.314
a notorious Hungarian counter-intelligence
officer who was famous for his brutality.

00:54:34.024 --> 00:54:36.275
Immediately after he realized

00:54:36.276 --> 00:54:42.490
that Hannah is actually Hungarian,
and her name is Senesh Aniko,

00:54:42.783 --> 00:54:44.576
and her mother lives in Budapest,

00:54:45.661 --> 00:54:49.164
he ordered her mother
to the Hadik Barracks.

00:54:52.793 --> 00:54:56.005
A civilian of military
bearing entered the room.

00:54:56.672 --> 00:54:58.632
His name was Rózsa.

00:55:02.302 --> 00:55:03.679
Much to my surprise,

00:55:04.096 --> 00:55:05.889
He questioned me about Hannah.

00:55:09.184 --> 00:55:12.271
He asked what specific reasons
she had had for leaving home.

00:55:13.188 --> 00:55:16.859
I replied, \"Jewish youth
has no future in Hungary.

00:55:17.985 --> 00:55:20.111
And much as it hurt me to
part with her,

00:55:20.112 --> 00:55:24.116
I\'m happy she\'s not here to experience the
terrible suffering of the Jews.\"

00:55:30.330 --> 00:55:32.749
He said,
\"Where do you really think

00:55:32.750 --> 00:55:35.335
your daughter is now -
this minute?\"

00:55:36.628 --> 00:55:40.632
I repeated that she had been in
Palestine for the past five years.

00:55:41.717 --> 00:55:43.052
\"Well,\" he said,

00:55:43.302 --> 00:55:46.096
\"if you really don\'t know,
I\'ll tell you.

00:55:47.056 --> 00:55:49.725
She\'s here,
in the adjoining room.

00:55:50.559 --> 00:55:51.392
I\'ll bring her in

00:55:51.393 --> 00:55:52.810
so you can talk to her

00:55:52.811 --> 00:55:55.522
and persuade her
to tell us everything she knows,

00:55:56.273 --> 00:55:58.233
because if she doesn\'t,

00:55:58.859 --> 00:56:01.361
this will be your last meeting.\"

00:56:35.854 --> 00:56:37.523
Rózsa said, \"Make her talk.\"

00:56:40.692 --> 00:56:43.028
I had not the faintest idea
what was happening.

00:56:43.486 --> 00:56:47.865
But if there was something
Hannah did not want to reveal,

00:56:47.866 --> 00:56:51.619
she had good reason,
and under no circumstances,

00:56:51.620 --> 00:56:53.080
would I influence her otherwise.

00:57:25.904 --> 00:57:29.908
For the next six days, I had no
idea what had become of Hannah.

00:57:30.951 --> 00:57:32.202
Was she still alive?

00:57:33.078 --> 00:57:36.081
How had she been catapulted
into the hell that was Hungary?

00:57:37.624 --> 00:57:39.376
Had she come to rescue me?

00:57:43.964 --> 00:57:46.299
Then on the morning of June 23rd,

00:57:46.300 --> 00:57:49.052
four new prisoners were
brought to our cells.

00:57:50.095 --> 00:57:54.099
Two of them were
hardly more than children.

00:58:08.238 --> 00:58:11.199
One of the young girls had spent
a couple of hours with Hannah

00:58:11.200 --> 00:58:13.160
at the Gestapo main headquarters.

00:58:14.661 --> 00:58:16.163
When I saw Hannah,

00:58:16.413 --> 00:58:19.416
I was afraid to ask her
what happened to her.

00:58:19.666 --> 00:58:23.462
I was afraid to ask her
why is her tooth, teeth missing.

00:58:24.755 --> 00:58:28.175
Completely frozen, emotionally.

00:58:28.592 --> 00:58:29.843
That\'s how I felt.

00:58:35.098 --> 00:58:37.059
That morning,
I was summoned for interrogation.

00:58:37.935 --> 00:58:41.605
When I followed the soldier down
the corridor, a prisoner whispered,

00:58:42.189 --> 00:58:43.649
\"Hannah is here too.\"

00:58:54.785 --> 00:58:59.581
That very evening, a Hungarian
prisoner of German origin, Hilda

00:58:59.873 --> 00:59:02.417
unlocked the door of my cell.

00:59:08.006 --> 00:59:11.343
She told me to go to the
window and look across.

00:59:45.210 --> 00:59:50.131
One-two-three...
eight feet long,

00:59:50.132 --> 00:59:53.009
two strides across,

00:59:53.010 --> 00:59:54.469
the rest is dark.

00:59:55.220 --> 00:59:57.389
Life hangs over me
like a question mark.

00:59:58.724 --> 01:00:00.601
I could have been 23 this July.

01:00:02.311 --> 01:00:04.813
I gambled on what mattered most,

01:00:05.355 --> 01:00:07.316
The dice were cast.

01:00:08.191 --> 01:00:09.318
I lost.

01:00:47.856 --> 01:00:51.109
One day Hannah noted the
yellow star on our clothes.

01:00:52.069 --> 01:00:54.404
She said she was no longer
a Hungarian citizen,

01:00:54.821 --> 01:00:57.074
and thus not required
to wear the emblem.

01:00:58.367 --> 01:01:00.661
One of my companions wrote in the air,

01:01:01.244 --> 01:01:04.581
\"You\'re lucky
not to be branded.\"

01:01:04.582 --> 01:01:09.419
Whereupon Hannah drew an enormous
Star of David on the dust-coated window.

01:01:11.506 --> 01:01:14.299
There it remained until weeks later,
when the window was washed.

01:01:17.427 --> 01:01:19.887
Once she crossed the border
and was caught,

01:01:19.888 --> 01:01:22.808
I think she continued
her mission in a different way.

01:01:23.350 --> 01:01:25.685
Then the mission was
almost like a poetic mission

01:01:25.686 --> 01:01:27.145
to save something else.

01:01:27.396 --> 01:01:34.111
And that was the spirit, the dignity of,
of her people, of humankind.

01:01:41.536 --> 01:01:46.039
Hannah got information on her almost
daily trips to Gestapo headquarters,

01:01:46.123 --> 01:01:47.958
where she was taken for interrogation.

01:01:54.798 --> 01:01:58.677
Her windows signals began to
serve as a daily news report

01:01:58.678 --> 01:02:01.722
and were watched by every prisoner
whose window faced the yard.

01:02:09.396 --> 01:02:10.396
Through Hannah,

01:02:10.690 --> 01:02:14.066
we first learned that there had been
an assassination attempt

01:02:14.067 --> 01:02:15.653
on the life of Hitler.

01:02:16.111 --> 01:02:18.196
And that, to a prisoner,

01:02:18.614 --> 01:02:23.869
would have been enormously,
enormously promising.

01:02:25.871 --> 01:02:28.874
It could mean that the
war will be over tomorrow.

01:02:36.256 --> 01:02:42.345
There was this woman who opened
our cell door, and as she opened

01:02:42.429 --> 01:02:46.224
the door, you know, I took a look.

01:02:47.058 --> 01:02:53.147
And there\'s someone across from me,
a young woman, all alone,

01:02:53.148 --> 01:02:59.446
a young woman, not much older than me.
A few days later, we were lead

01:02:59.488 --> 01:03:04.492
from the fifth floor by the guards
down some steps into a courtyard

01:03:04.493 --> 01:03:07.329
the prison had,
it was a circular courtyard.

01:03:12.417 --> 01:03:15.128
And there I see a young woman

01:03:15.671 --> 01:03:17.255
from the cell across,

01:03:17.923 --> 01:03:24.262
and I was so happy to see her and at
least to find out what she was about.

01:03:29.476 --> 01:03:35.608
You know, then I look at her
and I see her teeth are missing.

01:03:36.441 --> 01:03:39.654
I said, \"Did they kick
them out here for you?\"

01:03:40.320 --> 01:03:43.281
She says, \"Oh no, I had
that for a long time.\"

01:03:44.950 --> 01:03:46.283
She was protecting me.

01:03:46.284 --> 01:03:47.284
Definitely.

01:03:47.662 --> 01:03:52.666
She just didn\'t want me to be hurt
or be afraid maybe that I should

01:03:52.667 --> 01:03:54.794
get that too,
that they would hit me.

01:04:02.133 --> 01:04:07.848
She was such a combination
of courage and gentleness.

01:04:12.936 --> 01:04:17.941
Finally on one occasion, we happened
to be in the yard at the same time.

01:05:40.941 --> 01:05:45.945
Hannah said, \"I\'m reconciled to my fate,
but the thought that I\'ve needlessly

01:05:45.946 --> 01:05:48.490
involved you in all this is unbearable.\"

01:05:50.241 --> 01:05:53.203
I told her that I was alright,

01:05:53.788 --> 01:05:57.750
and the only thing that mattered to
me was that I could be close to her.

01:06:07.050 --> 01:06:10.887
At the beginning of September
Hannah was placed in a cell next

01:06:10.888 --> 01:06:15.392
to mine with other prisoners, the
atmosphere seemed more relaxed.

01:06:16.017 --> 01:06:17.812
A few prisoners were even liberated.

01:06:19.312 --> 01:06:22.190
Hannah was not summoned as
frequently for interrogation.

01:06:22.858 --> 01:06:25.861
Then the questions stopped entirely.

01:06:27.070 --> 01:06:30.072
The stepped-up bombings
and victories of the Allies

01:06:30.073 --> 01:06:33.994
and the rapid advance of
the Russians increased our confidence

01:06:34.244 --> 01:06:36.706
that the end of the war was near.

01:06:37.998 --> 01:06:41.001
Toward the end of September,
I was suddenly released

01:06:41.084 --> 01:06:43.879
along with many others,
but not Hannah.

01:06:45.506 --> 01:06:48.758
I immediately called upon an
old friend, a lawyer,

01:06:48.759 --> 01:06:51.011
and asked him to
defend my daughter.

01:06:51.637 --> 01:06:55.014
He said that Hannah was to be tried for
treason against Hungary

01:06:55.015 --> 01:06:57.809
and that she would
definitely be convicted.

01:06:57.810 --> 01:07:00.310
But he said the length
of the sentence was of no

01:07:00.311 --> 01:07:03.147
importance because
at the end of the war,

01:07:03.148 --> 01:07:05.233
political prisoners would be released.

01:07:10.781 --> 01:07:14.993
During those days, I received a long,
censored letter from Hannah

01:07:14.994 --> 01:07:17.327
praising her cellmates
and assuring me

01:07:17.328 --> 01:07:19.706
she was well.

01:07:19.707 --> 01:07:22.584
Later they told me that she had
taught them songs,

01:07:22.585 --> 01:07:24.754
told them endless stories
about Palestine.

01:07:25.755 --> 01:07:28.173
She even gave them
Hebrew lessons.

01:08:22.393 --> 01:08:26.189
My attorney promised he would notify
me when Hannah\'s trial date was set.

01:08:27.440 --> 01:08:32.445
But on October 15, the destiny of
Hungary\'s remaining Jews was sealed.

01:08:35.365 --> 01:08:40.830
In October, 1944, the Hungarian
leader Horthy was about to proclaim

01:08:40.913 --> 01:08:42.581
a separate peace with the Allies.

01:08:43.331 --> 01:08:46.126
And at that moment,
he was overthrown and

01:08:46.167 --> 01:08:48.211
Arrow Cross regime was instituted.

01:08:50.255 --> 01:08:55.134
The Arrow Cross could not engage
in the final deportations onto death camps

01:08:55.135 --> 01:08:59.806
because the German infrastructure
was collapsing all around them,

01:08:59.807 --> 01:09:04.394
but they certainly could
torture and murder the Jews.

01:09:09.733 --> 01:09:11.610
Whatever hardship or atrocities

01:09:11.944 --> 01:09:14.989
the Jews of Budapest
had previously endured

01:09:15.155 --> 01:09:17.782
were nothing compared
to the bloodbath that ensued

01:09:17.783 --> 01:09:20.910
under the rule of the
bestial, Hungarian fascists,

01:09:20.911 --> 01:09:23.371
the Arrow-Crossers.

01:09:33.173 --> 01:09:37.553
One of the things the Arrow Cross did
was to round up the Jews

01:09:37.761 --> 01:09:41.932
and to rope them and
put them into the Danube river.

01:09:42.683 --> 01:09:45.184
And then to save ammunition,

01:09:45.185 --> 01:09:47.353
they would shoot every other one.

01:09:47.395 --> 01:09:50.356
And consequently, the people would
not have the ability

01:09:50.816 --> 01:09:52.902
to sustain themselves
and they would drown.

01:10:06.289 --> 01:10:09.627
Jews were permitted to leave their
houses for only two hours a day,

01:10:10.044 --> 01:10:11.336
on certain days.

01:10:11.962 --> 01:10:15.007
I discarded the
yellow star sewn on my coat.

01:10:18.468 --> 01:10:20.303
When Hannah Senesh\' mother,
Catherine

01:10:20.386 --> 01:10:23.348
was trying to save her daughter,
was walking through the streets,

01:10:23.431 --> 01:10:25.684
going to different
government ministries and bureaus,

01:10:26.476 --> 01:10:30.022
the danger for any Jewish person
in the street was enormous.

01:10:33.233 --> 01:10:35.902
And the Arrow Cross were they
are hunting for Jews;

01:10:35.903 --> 01:10:39.405
a Jew was fair game,
a Jew could be set upon and killed.

01:10:39.573 --> 01:10:41.200
There was no law against it.

01:10:41.241 --> 01:10:43.326
The law was that
you could kill Jews.

01:10:44.119 --> 01:10:45.912
So it was a very brave
thing that she did.

01:10:45.913 --> 01:10:48.623
Clearly she was utterly determined

01:10:48.624 --> 01:10:49.959
to try to save her daughter.

01:10:53.336 --> 01:10:57.465
On October 28th, I went to the
military court for Hannah\'s trial.

01:10:59.718 --> 01:11:02.679
I waited in the antechamber of
the courtroom, bearing the sign,

01:11:02.680 --> 01:11:04.807
“Hannah Senesh and Accomplices.”

01:11:05.557 --> 01:11:07.559
I was not allowed inside the courtroom.

01:11:13.732 --> 01:11:17.986
The trial of Hannah was a
closed military tribunal,

01:11:17.987 --> 01:11:22.574
so there are actually no records
surviving of what took place.

01:11:25.703 --> 01:11:30.289
But Yoel Palgi, one of her
comrades reports that

01:11:30.290 --> 01:11:34.086
Hannah gave
an impassioned speech to the judges.

01:11:35.212 --> 01:11:36.046
Hannah Senesh,

01:11:36.047 --> 01:11:38.172
if you want to call this her
Joan of Arc moment,

01:11:38.173 --> 01:11:39.717
this is where she
comes into her own.

01:11:40.009 --> 01:11:41.593
Where she speaks to her accusers

01:11:41.635 --> 01:11:44.304
And she says, \"Remember:
the war is going to come to an end.

01:11:45.055 --> 01:11:47.615
And remember that you will be tried
for what you are doing to me.

01:11:48.142 --> 01:11:50.101
You, who are supposed
to be Hungarian patriots,

01:11:50.102 --> 01:11:53.188
will be tried for being
enemies of your country, not me.

01:11:54.231 --> 01:11:58.568
And apparently this had some
affect on the judges because they

01:11:58.569 --> 01:12:00.779
postponed bringing a verdict.

01:12:01.071 --> 01:12:04.364
And of course the Russians were outside
the gates practically at that point.

01:12:04.365 --> 01:12:06.869
So, Hannah reminded them

01:12:07.410 --> 01:12:09.412
that reckoning was nearby.

01:12:17.838 --> 01:12:21.674
On October 30 and 31, there
were such intense air raids

01:12:21.675 --> 01:12:22.955
that I couldn\'t leave the house.

01:12:31.935 --> 01:12:37.231
On November 3, I applied for a visitor\'s
pass at the office of Captain Simon,

01:12:37.232 --> 01:12:39.400
the prosecutor in charge
of Hannah\'s case.

01:12:40.694 --> 01:12:43.196
There I was told that
Captain Simon was out of town

01:12:43.197 --> 01:12:45.866
and could not be reached
until November 7.

01:13:02.549 --> 01:13:03.591
On November 7,

01:13:03.592 --> 01:13:06.636
I called again at the
office of Captain Simon

01:13:06.637 --> 01:13:08.263
only to find total confusion.

01:13:09.223 --> 01:13:12.266
One crammed moving van
after another trundled out.

01:13:12.267 --> 01:13:14.394
All the fascists were fleeing.

01:13:15.145 --> 01:13:19.232
I explained that I desperately
wanted the visitor\'s permit.

01:13:19.233 --> 01:13:22.652
An officer answered that
Simon had been transferred.

01:13:22.653 --> 01:13:25.823
Then, glancing at his watch, he added,
\"You had better hurry.\"

01:13:31.954 --> 01:13:33.914
I reached the prison at about 10:30.

01:13:35.958 --> 01:13:39.670
After wandering up and down the corridors
of the seemingly deserted building,

01:13:40.087 --> 01:13:42.256
I found Captain Simon\'s office.

01:13:43.006 --> 01:13:47.343
It was empty, but a briefcase on
one of the desks indicated that

01:13:47.344 --> 01:13:49.638
his owner was still in the building.

01:14:51.658 --> 01:14:55.244
Her interrogator and her judge says,

01:14:55.245 --> 01:14:57.206
\"Hannah Senesh,
you\'v been sentenced to death.

01:14:57.497 --> 01:14:59.707
If you want to ask for clemency,
you may plead for your life.\"

01:14:59.708 --> 01:15:01.460
And she refuses to do so.

01:15:26.443 --> 01:15:27.694
Do I believe in God?

01:15:29.279 --> 01:15:30.906
I don\'t know.

01:15:31.448 --> 01:15:33.074
For me, He is more a symbol

01:15:33.075 --> 01:15:36.411
an expression of the moral forces
in which I believe.

01:15:37.538 --> 01:15:42.000
Despite everything,
I believe the world was created for good

01:15:42.042 --> 01:15:44.503
and there\'s nothing
on earth so evil

01:15:44.504 --> 01:15:47.172
that a ray of light
can\'t seep through.

01:16:13.407 --> 01:16:16.451
At 11:45 Simon returned.

01:16:17.578 --> 01:16:18.828
\"Captain,\" I said.

01:16:18.829 --> 01:16:21.832
\"Tell me what I have
to do to see my daughter.\"

01:16:27.921 --> 01:16:29.507
\"Hungary is under martial law,\"
he said.

01:16:29.715 --> 01:16:32.718
\"And your daughter was
found with a radio transmitter.

01:16:33.468 --> 01:16:36.263
The military tribunal found her
guilty of treason

01:16:36.763 --> 01:16:38.682
and demanded the Supreme penalty.

01:16:40.350 --> 01:16:43.812
And this penalty has
already been carried out.\"

01:16:55.991 --> 01:16:58.200
It suddenly struck me

01:16:58.201 --> 01:17:01.581
that Simon had just come
from the execution.

01:17:29.316 --> 01:17:33.361
It\'s very difficult
when talking about any wartime mission,

01:17:33.362 --> 01:17:36.156
to talk about success or failure.

01:17:37.699 --> 01:17:40.577
It clearly failed in that

01:17:40.578 --> 01:17:43.287
Hannah Senesh and her people
were captured

01:17:43.288 --> 01:17:45.749
and they were unable
to carry out their task.

01:17:46.416 --> 01:17:48.751
But in the wider sense,
of course it succeeded.

01:17:48.752 --> 01:17:50.711
It succeeded because it took place.

01:17:50.712 --> 01:17:52.756
The might of the German army,

01:17:52.798 --> 01:17:55.092
the Gestapo was overwhelming.

01:17:55.884 --> 01:17:58.136
Hundreds of millions of Europeans

01:17:58.596 --> 01:18:00.263
were captive peoples.

01:18:01.139 --> 01:18:03.891
And here was this little group

01:18:03.892 --> 01:18:07.479
of Palestinian Jews who said

01:18:08.063 --> 01:18:10.107
we\'re going to try to do something.

01:18:17.989 --> 01:18:18.824
At the prison,

01:18:18.865 --> 01:18:22.244
I was given a few
of Hannah\'s personal effects.

01:18:22.744 --> 01:18:25.038
In the pockets of the dresses

01:18:25.414 --> 01:18:27.249
I found two scraps of paper

01:18:28.083 --> 01:18:30.794
and a few undated lines of farewell:

01:18:35.215 --> 01:18:36.717
Dearest Mother,

01:18:37.718 --> 01:18:40.053
I don\'t know what to say.

01:18:40.971 --> 01:18:42.640
Only this:

01:18:43.098 --> 01:18:49.605
A million thanks,
and forgive me if you can.

01:18:50.439 --> 01:18:55.193
You know so well
why words aren\'t necessary.

01:18:56.445 --> 01:18:58.280
With love forever,

01:18:59.114 --> 01:19:00.114
Your Daughter.