NOVI SAD, Yugoslavia β A 20-year-old Jewish resistance fighter was executed by pole hanging before a large crowd in Hungarian-occupied territory on Nov. 25, 1941, after being captured with a weapon and identified as a member of an anti-Axis youth organization, according to historical accounts of the case.
The young woman, identified as Lily Burm, was put to death using a method known as “pole hanging,” a variation of the short-drop execution technique that was employed in parts of Hungary and Czechoslovakia during the Second World War and was referred to in some records as the “strangling gallows.”
Her execution was carried out not on a conventional gallows but on a post, a procedure that combined strangulation and a controlled fall in a manner that witnesses described as deeply ππ½πΈπΈππΎππ. Despite the brutality of the method, occupying forces deliberately assembled a crowd to watch, hoping the spectacle would deter others from joining resistance cells.
Burm was arrested on Sept. 20, 1941, by Hungarian gendarmerie and occupation police. She was found carrying a weapon, and investigators concluded she was part of resistance cells, either stockpiling arms for fellow fighters or preparing to use them against Hungarian forces.
The mere act of carrying a weapon was enough to bring a death sentence under occupation law.
Very little is known about her life before the war. She was 20 years old when she died and had joined a Jewish youth organization known as Hashomer Hatzair, or “The Young Guard,” in her hometown of Novi Sad. When Hungarian military forces aligned with Nazi Germany invaded the region, she turned to organizing resistance activity and took part in sabotage operations against Hungarian soldiers.
Those acts carried the death penalty, and Burm understood the risk. As a woman and as a Jewish fighter, she also faced the prospect of additional horrors if captured. She was held for roughly two months in a Hungarian-occupied prison in Ujvidek, alongside other suspected resisters, before military authorities confirmed her execution.
On the morning of her death, guards escorted her from her cell to the execution post. A crowd had been gathered by the occupying forces to witness the killing. Soldiers hoped that watching a 20-year-old woman die in public would discourage serious offenses and, above all, prevent local people from joining resistance groups.
The mechanics of pole hanging were methodical and cruel. The condemned person was brought to a post or pillar, typically about three meters tall. Ropes were attached to the victim’s feet and secured to a pulley system at the base of the post.
A chest sling passed over the body and under the arms, holding the prisoner still before the drop.
A noose was then secured around the neck and attached to a hook at the top of the pole. The death sentence was usually read aloud. The chest sling was released, and the victim jerked downward.
An assistant executioner used a foot rope to guide the fall, while a senior executioner standing on a platform behind the post placed the heel of his hand under the condemned person’s jaw to increase the force on the neck.
At the end of the drop, the executioner was said to manually dislocate the neck by forcing the head to one side. Some accounts describe pole hanging as more humane and quicker than the gallows, with death typically occurring within about a minute when performed successfully. In Burm’s case, the post was not as tall as the standard three meters, and the executioner and his assistant worked together to end her life.
She wore a dark dress. Her arm was secured to the post, leaving her no chance of escape. Hungarian guards surrounded her, some wearing the classic German-style steel helmet, a visible sign of their collaboration with Axis forces.
Two guards stood directly beside her body to prevent any attempt to rescue her.
Her body was left on the post for a period afterward, a deliberate act intended to send a clear message to the local population. Such displays were used to deter others from joining the resistance and to force people into submission, reflecting one of the deepest fears of Axis forces that rolled across Europe: organized opposition.
Burm was not the only woman subjected to such a fate. Across occupied Europe, many young women were arrested and seized for alleged involvement in resistance against German or Axis forces. Teenagers were among those executed, with some hanged from trees for suspected or confirmed resistance activity.
Her story remains one of the lesser-known episodes of the war, but historians and researchers say she deserves to be remembered for standing up to her enemies in her homeland. She was a Jewish woman who understood the persecution that awaited her if she did not resist, and she chose to fight the occupation she was forced to live under.
The reasons cited for her execution were, by the standards of wartime, relatively thin: carrying a weapon in public. She may have carried it for personal protection. But once authorities discovered her link to the Young Guard resistance group, that was enough to send her to the post.
She likely endured a harsh interrogation before sentencing.
Her case illustrates the broader machinery of terror that followed the Axis partition of Yugoslavia. After Yugoslavia joined the Axis Alliance on March 25, 1941, German forces were allowed to move through its territory toward Greece. The country was later partitioned, and territories fell under occupation and collaborationist control.
Different groups, including the Ustasha militia, instigated a reign of brutality against civilians. Widespread executions and deportations to concentration and extermination camps followed. Resistance was met with the most brutal reprisals, and people suspected of subverting occupying forces could be tortured, sometimes to death.
In that environment, Burm’s decision to join the resistance was an act of extraordinary courage. She organized resistance activities against Hungarian forces and participated in sabotage. She knew the danger she faced and the additional horrors that could be inflicted on a woman who was caught.
On Sept. 20, 1941, that danger became reality.
Her execution on Nov. 25, 1941, was carried out in front of a crowd that occupying forces had assembled as a warning. Instead, her name has endured as a reminder of the young people who paid the ultimate price for resisting occupation.
Her story, though not widely known, stands as a testament to the courage of those who fought back.