4. Hannah Szenes

Hannah Szenes: Poet, Special Operations Executive and national heroine in Israel, where several streets, a kibbutz and the headquarters of the Zionist Youth Movement bear her name.

Szenes refused to reveal details of her mission to rescue Jews from deportation to Auschwitz, despite being imprisoned, tortured & eventually executed by firing squad.

A famed poet, her best-known work, “A Walk to Caesarea”, was later put to music by David Zahavi and sung by many artists over the years. It was also used in the film Schindler’s List.

Just 23 when her life ended, the following line was found in the diary in her cell after she died:

“In the month of July, I shall be twenty-three/I played a number in a game/The dice have rolled. I have lost.”