On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, the story of Rebbetzin Rachel Zini takes on a particularly sharp meaning – not merely as personal testimony, but as a complete chapter in the story of the Jewish people, from the hell of Auschwitz, through the rebuilding of a life, to leadership positions in the State of Israel.
Zini, born in Hungary in 1922, was deported in 1944 along with her mother and sister to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Her sister Hana, who was pregnant, was sent immediately to her death in the gas chambers. Rachel and her mother were left alone and transferred to forced labor in German munitions factories – where their fight for survival began.
"My mother and grandmother were left with no one from their entire family," said her son, Rabbi Dr. Eliyahu Rehavim Zini. "And yet, out of the greatest hell the world has ever known, they chose to keep living, to build, and to create."
Wounded and bleeding, unconscious for nine days
One of the most harrowing moments in her story unfolded inside the camp itself. An SS officer brutally attacked a Jewish prisoner who had fallen behind on her work quota, setting a dog on her that tore at her flesh. "My mother, with incomprehensible courage and resourcefulness, walked up to that officer, looked him in the face, and slapped him twice," her son recounted.
The officer drew his pistol and pressed it to her head. A jammed weapon prevented the shot – but punishment came immediately: ninety severe lashes that seared her frail body until she bled. "My mother lay unconscious for nine days, and when she opened her eyes, the first words out of her mouth were, 'It was worth it!'"
Even within that savage reality, Rachel became a source of strength for other women in the camp and prevented them from taking their own lives. "Auschwitz is temporary – we belong to a people of princesses," her son quoted his mother as saying.
Toward the end of the war, Rachel and her mother were sent on a death march of approximately 650 kilometers (404 miles) in inhuman conditions. They survived and reached Innsbruck, Austria – living skeletons, as the American soldiers who liberated them described them.
Among those liberators was a Jewish officer from the Algerian army – Rabbi Meir Zini, who would later become Rachel's husband. Their meeting marked the start of a new chapter. "My father looked at them and said, 'This is what remains of the Jewish people – we will rebuild it,'" he said. The two married, built a family, and forged a new life – first in North Africa, then in France, and finally in Israel.
From Holocaust to rebirth
For the family, the story is not merely a memory – it is a cornerstone of identity. "Our holy Torah teaches us to look across generations," he said. "Less than two hundred years ago, almost no Jews remained in the Land of Israel, and after the Holocaust, we rose and established a state. How can we not see in this the fulfillment of the prophets' vision?
"The great miracle is not only the survival," Zini stressed, "but the choice not to let evil define us. My mother would say, 'The real miracle is that people who had seen the gas chambers chose to get married and bring life into the world.'"
Eight decades after that moment in Auschwitz – when Rachel stood before a Nazi officer – the story arrives at its symbolic pinnacle. Her grandson, David Zini, heads the Shin Bet. "Whoever wants to understand what the head of the Shin Bet is made of," her son concluded, "should look at his grandmother's story."
