The farewell letter written by Hana Sanesh to her brother Giora was revealed as part of the National Library's "Diary Operation" in honor of the 75th year of the state.
Sanesh did not believe that she would meet her brother Giora before she left for Europe, a mission she thought she would never return from.
When her brother arrived in Israel a few days before her departure to Egypt, she gave him the touching letter.
"Dear Giura, there are letters that are not written in order to be sent. Letters that are forced to be written, without asking: will they reach their certificate or not? The day after tomorrow I start something new. Maybe evil, maybe imaginary, maybe dangerous, maybe one in a hundred, maybe one in a thousand will pay In his life. Maybe less than life, maybe more. Don't ask what, someday you'll know what the matter is.
Hanna Senesh with the chickens in the barn (archive), photo: Hanna Senesh archive at the National Library, courtesy of Uri and Mirit Eisen
"Dear Giura, I must explain something to you, justify myself. I must prepare for that moment when you will stand here, within the borders of the country, looking forward to the moment when we meet after six years and when you ask: Where is she? - Yaanuch in short: Ain, she is not!"
With these moving words, Hana Sanesh opened the letter she had written to be delivered to her older brother Giora, from whom she had separated years earlier when she immigrated to Israel.
Giora was supposed to arrive in Eretz Yisrael in those days.
Sanesh did not know the exact time when he would arrive, and was surprised to find out that she would get to deliver the letter to him face to face about a month before she left for a skydiving course in Egypt, and from there to the mission she believed she would never return from alive.
"Blessed is the match" in Sanesh's handwriting, photo: Hana Senesh archive at the National Library
The details of what she intended to write to him and her thoughts before leaving for the mission from which she did not return, are found in Sanesh's personal diary, kept in the National Library.
From mother tongue to vernacular
Hana (Eniko) Senesh was born in Budapest to father Bela, who was a journalist, writer and playwright, and to mother Katrina, who had to raise Hana and her brother Giura alone after the death of her father, who died when Hana was only 6 years old. As a middle-class Hungarian Jew, Hana attended a general gymnasium, but encountered anti-Semitism there which made her an enthusiastic Zionist.
At the age of 18, she immigrated to the Land of Israel alone and began studying at the Nahalel Agricultural School.
At the end of her studies, she moved to Kibbutz Sdot Yam near Caesarea, where she wrote her best-known poem ("To me, to me, that it will never end").
The outbreak of World War II and the first news about the fate of her people who remained in Europe, convinced Senesh to switch to writing only in Hebrew in her private diary.
At the age of 13, she began writing a diary documenting the life of a Jewish girl in Hungary, and in the years leading up to her immigration to Israel, she wrote exclusively in Hungarian.
Only when she immigrated to Israel and started learning Hebrew did she try writing in her new language.
"I'm starting something new. Maybe evil, maybe imaginary, maybe dangerous, maybe one in a hundred, maybe one in a thousand will pay in his life. Maybe in less than a lifetime, maybe in the most"
This private step, a transition from the language of her mother to the language of her people, which was being renewed, marked a greater change, which would later make Senesh a pan-Israeli symbol.
At the end of 1943, Senesh joined the training of the Yishuv's paratroopers, and in mid-March 1944, she parachuted with several other members of the group in Yugoslavia.
For about three months she stayed in the forests of Croatia, waiting for the opportunity to cross the border to Hungary, which was her destination.
In Croatia she wrote "Blessed is the match", the note on which she gave to her colleague, the paratrooper Reuven Dafni.
Photo of the last entry in Hana Senesh's diary, photo: Hana Senesh archive at the National Library, courtesy of Uri and Mirit Eisen
On June 7, 1944, she managed to cross the border into Hungary, but was captured by the Hungarians the same day.
She was transferred to a prison in Budapest, where she stayed for about five months, until her execution on November 7, 1944, 21 in Sheshvan 555.
Her mother, Katarina, was the one who brought her writings, letters and diaries to Israel, for safekeeping in the National Library.
One of a kind
Matan Barzali, Director of Archives at the National Library: "In the preface to the printed edition, which collects the writings of Hana Sanesh, we get an answer to the question - why, out of the group of Hebrew paratroopers who risked their lives trying to save the Jews of Europe, Hana Sanesh is not only the best known, but Most of us are also the only one whose name is remembered: in her diaries, poems and letters we receive clear, certain and decisive testimony.
"Forgive me that I was forced to lie to you even in the happy moments of the meeting. You were so new in our lives that I couldn't tell you the truth. I'm sure you'll understand me now"
"All the details of her life, her mission, and her death add up to a one-of-a-kind character. It didn't hurt that she was a gifted and expressive writer. Brother Giora and sister Hana were separated when the younger sister immigrated to Israel. Giora is a year older than her, and they were reunited for a very short time - right on the eve of Hana's departure from Israel - So she let him read the farewell and apology letter she wrote for him. Sanesh added what she couldn't say to her brother Giora in the letter itself or even in their meeting, that's because the mission she went on was secret."
And this is how Sanesh wrote: "I wrote this letter before the skydiving course. When I let you read it, you couldn't understand what it was about. Forgive me, Gyori, that I had to lie to you even in the moments of happiness of the meeting. You were so new in our life, that I couldn't tell you the truth I'm sure you'll understand me now."
The last entry in Senesh's diary was written less than a month after the letter to Giora and the meeting with him.
"This week I will go to Egypt. I am a conscript soldier. I don't want to write about the terms of the recruitment, about my feelings around it, about the news about it - and what is in front of me. I want to believe that what I have done and will do is right. Time will tell the rest."
Hana Senesh's original diaries can be read on the National Library website, as part of the "Operation Diary" project. Details about him can be found on the National Library website - www.nli.org.il.
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