Overview

The awe-inspiring story of Hannah Senesh, a female paratrooper in World War II whose courage and sacrifice left an indelible mark on history. In the years before World War II, thousands of young Jewish men and women escaped Europe, seeking safety in British Mandatory Palestine. By 1942, horrifying reports began to spread about industrialised killing centres in Poland and a chilling campaign to exterminate Europe’s entire Jewish population. When it became clear that the Allies were unwilling to spare any forces from the war effort to save civilians, the Jewish community in Palestine came up with a daring plan. Working with British Military Intelligence, an elite unit of young Jewish paratroopers volunteered to return to eastern Europe. Once behind enemy lines, they would use their expertise in the local languages and terrain to rescue thousands of downed Allied pilots and escaped POWs. At the same time, these volunteer commandos would help Jewish civilians escape deportation to death camps or take up arms in resistance against the Nazis. Hannah Senesh was one of only three female paratroopers who risked everything to infiltrate occupied Europe. In 1939, at just eighteen years old, Hannah emigrated from Hungary to British Mandatory Palestine, where she dreamed of being a poet and a schoolteacher. Instead, she became a poet and a paratrooper. Five years after fleeing Europe, Hannah parachuted back into occupied territory as a freedom fighter with the most crucial role in her team: the wireless operator tasked with sending and deciphering top secret British radio codes. Though captured after crossing the border into Hungary, she refused to give up her radio codes or any information about her mission, despite enduring months of torture. Her final act of defiance — choosing to die before a firing squad rather than beg for clemency — cemented her legendary status as the ‘Jewish Joan of Arc’, and her posthumously published poems, translated into more than twenty languages, continue to inspire new generations of readers. More than just a gripping historical account of Hannah’s life and afterlife, Crash of the Heavens offers a powerful reminder of the human spirit’s ability to shine, even in the darkest of times.

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9781915590701

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Reviews

Praise for No Surrender: ‘A fascinating war story … a you-are-there portrait of the horrors of war and the incredible effect one selfless person can have on hundreds.’ * Kirkus Reviews * Praise for No Surrender: ‘There’s perhaps no greater untold story to come out of World War II. It’s a heck of a father-son story, but it’s also a tale of the power of one man to do something selfless that forever changes a life.’ * Newsweek * Praise for The Last Boss of Brighton: ‘Douglas Century fuses cultural history and popular entertainment to create the dramatic effect of a novel. The Last Boss of Brighton is an engrossing true story, one of those mob epics that hits all the expected notes — murder and betrayal, swaggering power and outlandish success, featuring, at its core, a complex antihero whose life story seems stranger than fiction. More than a chronicle of a notorious crime boss, it delves deep into the systemic corruption and dysfunction of the Soviet Union that created, honed, and defined Russian organised crime in America. What a relentless, captivating read.’ -- Naveed Jamali, author of <em>How To Catch a Russian Spy</em>

‘What a story! This book is a magnificent masterwork, and you won’t be able to put it down.’ -- Colonel Jack Jacobs, US Army (retired), Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, author of <em>If Not Now, When?</em> ‘Hannah Senesh isn’t just a hero. She’s a reminder of what happens when Jews stop running and start fighting. Crash of the Heavens captures the essence of that moment — when young volunteers, men and women, parachuted into the heart of Nazi Europe not as victims but as warriors.’ -- Aaron Cohen, author of <em>Brotherhood of Warriors</em>

Author Information

Douglas Century is the author and coauthor of numerous bestselling books including Hunting El Chapo, Under and Alone, Brotherhood of Warriors, Barney Ross: The Life of a Jewish Fighter, The Last Boss of Brighton, and Takedown: The Fall of the Last Mafia Empire, a finalist for the 2003 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. His World War II nonfiction narrative, No Surrender, coauthored with Chris Edmonds, was the recipient of a 2020 Christopher Award. A veteran investigative journalist, Century’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Globe & Mail, Tablet, and The Guardian.

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