Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh (2009)

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• Project Phase: Completed
• Release Date: 2009-01-28 - NY and/or LA
• Distributor(s): Balcony Releasing
• Film Genre(s): Documentary
• Country: United States
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SYNOPSIS

This is about the World War II-era poet and diarist who became a paratrooper, resistance fighter and modern-day Joan of Arc. Safe in Palestine in 1944, Hannah volunteered for a mission to rescue Jews in her native Hungary. Shockingly, it was the only military rescue mission for Jews during World War II. Hannah parachuted behind enemy lines, was captured, tortured and ultimately executed by the Nazis. Though only 23 at the time of her death, Hannah left behind a body of written work that has inspired readers around the world for generations.

The filmmakers were given unprecedented access to the Senesh family archive, including hundreds of unpublished letters and over 1,300 never-before-seen photos. They interviewed the few remaining survivors who knew Hannah – her classmates at a Budapest girls’ school; her friends in Palestine (including Israeli President Shimon Peres); parachutists from Hannah’s mission; and prisoners from Hannah’s time in a Gestapo jail in the summer of 1944. They also assembled a team of top scholars, including Holocaust expert Michael Berenbaum (creator of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum) and renowned World War II historian Sir Martin Gilbert.

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