Find it on pages 228-249 of The Soul of the Text: Anthology of Jewish Literature - Great Books Foundation.
Read the diary entries from July 17, 1939 (Hannah's 18th birthday) through to her poem: Blessed is the Match:
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.
Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart.
Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor's sake.
Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.
Born in Budapest on July 17, 1921, to a wealthy, distinguished, and assimilated Hungarian Jewish family, Hannah Szenes escaped the anti-Semitism she experienced in Hungary and joined a kibbutz at Caesarea in Palestine. In 1943, she was approached by Jewish Agency officials to join a clandestine military project that offered aid to beleaguered European Jewry. She trained as a wireless operator and as a paratrooper in preparation for her mission.
Hannah Szenes was one of 37 Jews from Mandatory Palestine parachuted by the British Army into Yugoslavia during the Second World War to assist in the rescue of Hungarian Jews about to be deported to the German death camp at Auschwitz. Szenes was arrested at the Hungarian border, then imprisoned and tortured, but refused to reveal details of her mission. When she was brought face-to-face with her mother, whom she had not seen in five years, both women refused to give any information to their captors. Szenes was eventually tried and executed by firing squad November 7, 1944. After the war, her mother emigrated to Palestine and published her daughter’s diaries, poetry, and plays. Szenes is regarded as a national heroine in Israel, where her poetry is widely known and the headquarters of the Zionist youth movement Israel Hatzeira, a kibbutz, and several streets are named after her.
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