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Rachel Zylberberg "Deer" (1920-1943) 

Hashomer Hatzair activist, Jewish resistance activist, Warsaw Ghetto fighter.

In 2012, after his mother's death in Israel, writer and artist Ofer Aloni discovered an old World War II-era box in the attic of his family home. Inside were letters written in Polish and old photographs relating to his aunt's wartime activities—photos that had been hidden from view for 69 years. These documents shed new light on one of the heroines of the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto, a figure previously largely unknown in historical sources or studies. She was Rachel Zylberberg, known by her pseudonym "Sarenka . "

In the portrait photo, dark-haired, smiling Rachela Zylberberg

Rachel Zylberberg | Public Domain

Rachel was born on January 1, 1920, into an Orthodox Jewish family of Hasidic descent from Modrzyce. She had nine siblings. Her parents, Alexander and Masza (née Norwind), ran a shop at 37 Nowolipki Street, and later at 40 Nowolipki Street. She attended the Jehudyjah Jewish High School at 55 Długa Street. She was an excellent student and also excelled in sports.

As a teenager, she joined the left-wing Zionist youth organization Hashomer Hatzair . Initially, she hid this fact from her parents, who disapproved of her involvement in a left-wing organization. However, over time, she gained their acceptance. She became a member of Hashomer's "Bachazit" branch, to which Mordechai Anielewicz also belonged . In 1938, she took on the role of instructor for the organization's younger members, who adored her.

After the outbreak of war, Sarenka, along with her younger sister Ruth and Anielewicz's friend Moshe Kopito , headed east to Lithuania, like many other Jewish activists. There, she joined the Hamanof kibbutz near the town of Kiejdany, and then a Hashomer kibbutz in Vilnius itself. Thanks to her position in the organization, she organized her sister Ruth's departure for Palestine, but she herself decided to stay and develop Hashomer structures there. During this time, she became involved with Moshe Kopito, and on February 22, 1941, their daughter, Maja, was born in Vilnius.

Group portrait of Hashomer Hatzair members. In the back row, from left to right, are Tzvi Braun, Shifra Sokolka, and Mordechai Anielewicz. In the front are Moshe Domb and Rachel Zilberberg ("Sarenka"). Warsaw, Poland, 1938.

A group portrait of Hashomer Hatzair members. In the back row, from left to right, are Tzvi Braun, Shifra Sokolka, and Mordechai Anielewicz. In the front are Moshe Domb and Rachel Zilberberg ("Sarenka"). Warsaw, Poland, 1938 | US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Leah Silverstein Hammerstein

In June 1941, the German army attacked the Soviet Union and occupied Lithuania. The extermination of the local Jewish population soon began. From July, the Germans carried out mass executions in the Ponary Forest near Vilnius. Moshe Kopito, working under a false name as a communist at a local factory, was betrayed by an employee and shot by Germans in the street when he went out to buy milk for little Maja.

Sarenka, faced with mortal danger, decided to place her daughter under the care of a friendly doctor – a communist who ran an orphanage.

Although the decision to separate was dramatic, it gave the child a chance for survival. The girl lived under the assumed name of Jadwiga Sogak and likely survived the war. Rachel visited her daughter as often as she could. Over time, however, she was forced to hide, along with 15 companions from Hashomer, including Aba Kovner and Jurek Wilner , in a Dominican convent near Vilnius. Professor Dina Porat, in her biography of Aba Kovner, "Maawar Legisha," writes that it was there that the idea of ​​a youthful rebellion against the German occupier was born. Kovner, Sarenka, and their companions realized that the crimes in Ponary were not an isolated incident, but part of a systematic plan to exterminate the Jews. They knew they had to warn the Jewish community and call them to fight.

For this reason, Sarenka returned to the Warsaw Ghetto to tell the Jews there about the Nazi plans for the so-called "Final Solution." Chajka Grossman accompanied her on the journey . In her memoirs, she wrote that Rachel, for safety's sake, was disguised as her child—even though she was older than Grossman.

In the Warsaw Ghetto, Rachel lived at 40a Nowolipie Street. She worked in a small tailoring workshop with Mira Fuchrer and Towa Frenkel , and in a shop at 34 Nowolipki Street with her mother. She immediately became involved in underground activities: writing reports, recounting German crimes in Lithuania, and calling for armed resistance.

Aliza Witis-Szomron , who joined Hashomer in the Warsaw Ghetto as a teenager, recalls her first meeting with Sarenka:

"I remember vividly the gray September evening of 1941 in the Hashomer nest at Nalewki 23, when the first news from the Vilnius ghetto reached us. (...) In that room, we all sat on the floor, and in front of us stood a girl, perhaps twenty-two years old. Silver threads were visible in her hair – the first signs of gray. In the light of the gathering dusk, she looked pretty, but her eyes were dull. She recounted: (...)

It was a terrible night. We—the members of Hashomer Hatzair—hid in one apartment. We listened to the sounds of the street. We could hear cars stopping, then various voices, screams, gunfire, heartbreaking cries—the Germans were rounding up people, street after street. Where to? To the suburban forest, to Ponary—the execution site. Thousands of Jews had already been sent there. We have witnesses who escaped from there and they told us that men, women, and children were lined up over a dug-out hole and shot on the spot.

I came to tell you this and warn you. We have information about the liquidation of ghettos throughout eastern Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania. We have decided to defend ourselves. (...) Aba Kovner has drafted a proclamation calling for armed struggle against the Nazis. We have decided that when our hour comes, we will not die without a fight, and when we run out of weapons, we will spit in their faces."

On April 19, 1943, the Germans began the final liquidation of the ghetto. Jewish insurgents engaged in armed resistance. Sarenka fought in two groups defending Miła Street and the corner of Zamenhofa and Gęsia Streets. After an initial surprise, the Germans began brutally suppressing the uprising, combing the streets and houses, and setting buildings on fire. By early May, fighting was concentrated primarily around the bunkers. On May 8, the Germans discovered the bunker at 18 Miła Street , where the ŻOB headquarters was located . Approximately 100 fighters and 200 civilians were located there. Rachel Zylberberg was also hiding there. She perished along with Mordechai Anielewicz and a hundred other Jewish insurgents.

Rachel's parents and eight siblings also perished in the Holocaust. Maja, Sarenka's daughter, likely survived the war. It is believed she lives somewhere in Russia or Lithuania, unaware of her origins. If she were alive, she would be 84 years old today.

Ofer Aloni , son of Ruth—Rachel's only sister to survive the war—searched unsuccessfully for Maja for over a decade. He died in April 2025. He was deeply convinced that the Deer was immortalized on the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw as a woman turning her face away from the child she held in her arms.

For many years, the story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was told primarily from the perspective of its male leaders. The fates of women, who played an equally important role in the underground and armed struggle, remained largely forgotten or marginalized in historical literature. Aloni's discovery helped revive the memory of one of them, and Sarenka's story is also symbolic of the fates of many forgotten participants in the Jewish resistance movement.

 

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Author
Daniela Malec