This book comes out close to the second anniversary of October 7. Anywhere 2025 is not Budapest, 1938- but Jews are under assault. Jewish courage- especially female courage- is like a match that is consumed in flame. CRASH OF THE HEAVENS conveys a powerful lesson: Jewish heroism coexists in both verse and valour.
Most people know Henna Senesh as the author of the poem and song “Eli.Eli”. But as this book makes clear, Henna Senesh was far more than a poet. She was a soldier and a spy–a woman who chose to parachute into Hungary in an attempt to rescue her people. Douglas Century retells her story with a vital relevance for today. The result is a page turner of a book that reads like a novel.
Now when the notion of Israeli military heroism seems contested, Senesh has surfaced again. The author excavates the brilliant young woman– frustrated, lonely, headstrong, determined– long encrusted in myth. An immigrant from fascist Hungary to British Palestine, Senesh was one of a cohort of Jewish volunteers–37, including two other women– whom chose to infiltrate the inferno of Central and Eastern Europe, that other Jews were desperate to escape. Trained by the Palmach as well as the RAF and British intelligence, they had a dual mission: to locate and evacuate downed allied airmen, escaped POWs and to save Jews. For the latter, it was almost too late, though the paratroopers did rescue an unknown number of Jews.
In the predawn of March 13, 1944, a Halifax bomber flew across the black waters of the Adriatic Sea carrying four Jewish paratroopers equiped with submachine guns, pistols and knives. Their’s was a bold but unlikely mission: to parachute behind enemy lines and do the saving bit. She had the most crucial role in her team– the wireless operator tasked with sending and deciphering secret British radio codes. After parachuting into Yugoslavia, Senesh joined Tito’s partisans, but within days, the Germans marched into Hungary, complicating her mission. She crossed the border anyway, and was quickly captured by Hungarian gendarmes–likely because of a betrayal.
Century graphically describes the beatings and torture she endures with a stoic silence. When her trial for treason and espionage came, she eloquently denied betraying Hungary and chastised the judges for allying with Nazism. When Soviet snd Romanian troops descended on Budapest, she was summarily informed of her conviction and immediately executed, with no chance of an appeal. She refused a blindfold.
She left behind a trove of diaries, letters and simple, emotional poems–a dazzling literary, as well as moral legacy.
