'Out of the Sky': The Jewish parachutists who jumped into Nazi-occupied Europe - review

ByALAN ROSENBAUMJULY 18, 2026 22:04In the spring of 1944, during the dark days of the Holocaust, 37 young men and women who had escaped the conflagration in Europe and come to Mandatory Palestine embarked on a series of dangerous missions, parachuting into Nazi-occupied Europe. Twelve were captured by the enemy. Five of the 12 returned from captivity, three were executed, and four were sent to concentration camps, never to return. The best-known of the group was Hannah Szenes, who was murdered by a pro-Nazi Hungarian firing squad in November 1944.What was the purpose of their missions, what did they accomplish, and why are they considered among the great heroes of the State of Israel? In this captivating work, Matti Friedman documents the efforts of four of the parachutists – Szenes, Enzo Sereni, Haim Hermesh, and Haviva Reick – from the spring of 1944 until the operation’s dramatic conclusion that winter.In the introduction, Friedman writes, “Their actions changed nothing and yet somehow touched the fate of millions, including me. The strange gap between the mythic stature of the heroes and their scant accomplishments – this is the mystery that drew me to their story and kept me submerged in their world for years.ISRAELI STAMP honoring the parachutists, 1955. (credit: Wikimedia Commons)“Understanding this country – an effort that has preoccupied me since I came here, like most of the parachutists themselves, as a teenager – requires figuring out who these people were and why they mattered so much.”To solve the mystery, Friedman tracked down yellowing documents in a Tel Aviv archive and traveled to the countries where the parachutists had journeyed – Italy, Hungary, Austria, Germany, and Slovakia – to piece together the story behind the mission.From Cairo to Tel AvivFriedman explains that the operation had two parallel command structures – the British officers of MI9 in Cairo and the Zionist leaders in Tel Aviv – who had recruited the volunteers from young escapees from Europe. Each, he writes, had their own motives in planning the missions.“The British,” writes Friedman, “think they’re using Jewish parachutists, natives of occupied countries, for their war aims; the parachutists believe it’s they who are using the British, and they sometimes refer to the entire MI9 operation as nothing more than a ‘plane ticket.’ The real mission is to save Jews.”Even among the Zionist leaders, he writes, there was no unanimity on the goals. At one meeting, militia commander Eliyahu Golomb told the recruits that their job was to reach surviving Jews and train them for combat. Another official said that their goal was to find Jewish refugees and help them stay alive until the end of the war. David Ben-Gurion presented his own version. The parachutists were to prepare survivors for mass immigration after the war, he declared.One of the recruits remembered leaving the meeting confused about the mission's objectives, but neither he nor anyone else dropped out of the program despite the lack of clarity.The volunteers underwent training in parachute jumping, and in early 1944, British army trucks took them from Tel Aviv to Cairo, where MI9 instructors taught them intelligence-gathering techniques and Morse code before they were flown to a liberated airfield in Italy, and then dropped into occupied Europe.Friedman is a skilled writer and tracks the missions of the four parachutists, their backgrounds, what motivated them, what they experienced when they landed in Europe, and ultimately what occurred. A significant portion of the book is devoted to Szenes's mission to reach her home city of Budapest.Of the four parachutists on whom he focuses, three were killed, and only Haim Hermesh returned. Friedman recounts the tragic fates of Szenes, Sereni, and Reick poignantly but with admirable restraint, which makes his retelling all the more meaningful.Ultimately, Friedman suggests, the true purpose of the parachutists’ mission can be found in the words of the famous poem “Blessed is the Match” (Hebrew: “Ashrei hagafrur”) written by Szenes, which she handed to a fellow parachutist on a scrap of paper when they parted ways in a forest in Yugoslavia.The symbolism of lighting a flameLighting a flame, Friedman explains, symbolizes action.“What separates the Diaspora from the Land of Israel,” explains Friedman, “is action. 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. In this story, Jews will not be victims but heroes. This won’t change the war, but it will change how people remember the war, and therefore change the future. When faced with tragedy, those who know the parachutists’ story won’t pull the covers over their heads, or bemoan the cruelty of fate, or wait for someone else to do something. They will look out into the night, grip the sides of the door, and jump.”Although Szenes and the others did not fully succeed in the mission as outlined by their British and Zionist superiors, they did succeed in this purpose – telling the Zionist story of the war and influencing people to take action.Today, no less than 32 streets in Israel are named after Hannah Szenes, and three kibbutzim – Yad Hanna, Lahavot Haviva, and Netzer Sereni – are named after the three heroes who were executed.Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe is a compelling book that fills important gaps in the story of the parachutists and their impossible mission, while offering a deeper appreciation of true heroism.Out of the Sky: Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi EuropeBy Matti FriedmanSpiegel and Grau256 pages; $23Follow us on Google