Blessed is the match . . .
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, so it’s surprisingly timely that I was planning to post Hannah Szenes (sometimes spelled Senesh) today. Hannah was a Hungarian born Jew from an assimilated family; she moved to Israel as a young adult, joined a kibbutz, and wrote poems and plays.
In 1943, she joined the British Army and volunteered to parachute into Nazi-controlled Hungary to aid resistance fighters. She was captured , tortured, and eventually killed by the Nazis.
This was written while she was in jail, facing her imminent execution:
‘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.’
Neurotic Owl 