Rabbi Paula Marcus
Editor’s note: Senior Rabbi Paula Marcus of Temple Beth El in Aptos was chosen to deliver convocation to California State Legislature on April 17, Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Here is what she said:
Hannah Senesh was born in Hungary in 1921. In 1943, at the height of World War II, she volunteered to go into Nazi-controlled areas in Europe to save Jewish lives.
She was one of 37 Jewish Special Operation recruits from Mandate Palestine who parachuted into Yugoslavia. Their mission was to organize resistance to the Germans, and aid in the rescue of those who had been captured by the Nazis.
Hannah Senesh
After staying with the resistance fighters, known as the partisans, she was seized in German-occupied Hungary and executed by the Nazis in Budapest on 7 November 1944, at the age of 23.
She is known both for her courage and her poetry. The words of this song are from one of her poems, and they speak to the universal understanding that we are all connected through our hearts, our appreciation for the beauty of creation, resilience, and the powerful ways we elevate the memories of all who have worked to spread goodness and peace in the face of evil.
May they inspire us to continue this sacred work together.
www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/through-the-lens/hannah-szenes.asp