Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe

In 1944, the Jewish Agency and the Haganah cooperated with the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and MI9 to recruit and train Jewish volunteers from Mandatory Palestine to parachute into Nazi-occupied Europe. The volunteers' objectives were twofold: British military planners sought agents who could locate and rescue Allied airmen and escaped prisoners of war behind enemy lines; the Jewish leadership in Palestine hoped the volunteers could warn and assist Jewish communities facing deportation and extermination. Of approximately 250 candidates, 32 were selected and completed training. They were sent to British-controlled Egypt to be trained by the SOE in radio operations, sabotage, and partisan combat techniques, and were subsequently transferred to Bari, Italy, for flights into occupied territory.^[3]

The British mission was organized under Lt. Col. Tony Simonds of MI9, who recognized the intelligence value of these volunteers because of their knowledge of European languages and cultures. Simonds was willing for the parachutists to make contact with local Jewish populations after completing their MI9 assignments, but the Zionist leadership regarded saving Jews as the primary mission. As Friedman observed, "For the Zionist leadership and the parachutists, the British mission was a plane ticket, a way to get into Europe."^[3]

Of the 37 parachutists ultimately sent into Europe, 12 were captured and seven did not return home. The mission left the fledgling Jewish state with national heroes whose names were subsequently given to streets, settlements, and institutions throughout Israel, even though the operation failed to save any Jewish lives.^[2]

Friedman follows four of the parachutists - Hannah Szenes, Enzo Sereni, Haviva Reik, and Haim Hermesh - from the spring of 1944 to the operation's dramatic end that winter. By the mission's conclusion, not a single Nazi had been killed and not a single Jewish life had been definitively saved through the operation; many of the agents died in the process.^[1]

Friedman examines how this failed mission was transformed into heroic legend - one taught in Israeli schools for generations - and interrogates the distance between myth and historical reality. Central to his argument is the literary sensibility of the parachutists themselves. Senesh, daughter of a well-known Hungarian playwright, and Sereni, who held a doctorate in philosophy, both dreamed of writing great literary works and brought a theatrical self-awareness to their roles. As Friedman writes: "The parachutists aren't commandos. They're storytellers. They've been sent to write, with their lives, a Zionist story about the war—a story that will lead others not to despair but to action."^[2]

Retracing the parachutists' routes from Cairo and Bari to Yugoslavia and Slovakia, Friedman weaves his own investigative journey into the narrative. His primary research drew on the Haganah Archive in Tel Aviv, which holds thousands of real-time documents from the mission, as well as memoirs and biographies that had fallen largely out of circulation.^[3] The book connects this wartime history to contemporary Israel, reflecting on how the Zionist response to impossible circumstances—refusing despair in favor of action—resonates in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 attacks.^[4]

Friedman chose to concentrate on four volunteers whose written records (diaries, memoirs, and letters):^[3]

• Hannah Szenes (July 17, 1921 – November 7, 1944): A Hungarian-born poet, the daughter of a celebrated Budapest playwright, who emigrated to Palestine in 1939 and joined Kibbutz Sdot Yam. Parachuted into Yugoslavia on March 14, 1944, she crossed into Hungary, was captured by Hungarian gendarmes, tortured, and tried for treason by the Arrow Cross regime. She was executed by firing squad in Budapest on November 7, 1944. She is remembered in Israel for the Hebrew poem "A Walk to Caesarea" ("Eli, Eli"), written during her time at Sdot Yam. Friedman describes her as the mission's defining figure precisely because of her literary voice: "she's the best writer."^[2]

• Enzo Sereni (April 17, 1905 – November 18, 1944): An Italian Labor Zionist and co-founder of Kibbutz Givat Brenner, who held a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Rome. Ben-Gurion reportedly tried to prevent him from jumping, saying there was not "another man like him." He was parachuted into Nazi-occupied northern Italy on May 15, 1944, and was captured immediately—dropped, according to Friedman, carelessly atop a German military installation. He was executed at Dachau concentration camp on November 18, 1944. Kibbutz Netzer Sereni is named in his memory.^[2]

• Haviva Reik (June 22, 1914 – November 20, 1944): A Slovak-born parachutist who emigrated to Palestine in 1939. Friedman describes her as "the most effective of all the parachutists," having organized Jewish resistance and relief activities in the Banská Bystrica region of Slovakia. Captured by German forces in November 1944, she was killed in a massacre of resistance fighters at Kremnička on November 20, 1944. Kibbutz Lehavot Haviva and the Givat Haviva institute are named in her memory.^[3]

• Haim Hermesh (born 1919): One of the few parachutists to survive the mission. Aged 25 at the time of his jump, he flew from Bari, Italy into Yugoslavia carrying forged documents, a radio code key, and a letter of introduction from MI9 officers sewn into an asbestos pouch strapped to his leg.^[5] Hermesh escaped capture, fought with the partisans and the Red Army, and returned to Palestine after the war. His out-of-print Hebrew memoir, Operation Amsterdam, was a key source for Friedman. Hermesh is, as Friedman notes, the least known of the four - "likely because he survived."^[3]

• Jewish Parachutists of Mandate Palestine
• Special Operations Executive