Hungary’s forgotten wartime heroine remembered 100 years after her birth

Tortured and executed in Nazi-allied Hungary, Hannah Szenes is feted in Israel but largely unknown in her native land

In Israel, even schoolchildren know the name of Hannah Szenes, but in her birthplace of Hungary she has largely been forgotten.

Szenes was born to a Jewish family in Budapest 100 years ago, on 17 July 1921. In 1944, at the age of 22, she undertook a daring mission into Nazi-occupied Hungary. She was arrested and executed later that year after refusing to crack under torture.