Mrs. Tzipa Kozliner a”h was a small woman who stood up to the Soviet beast with tremendous mesirus nefesh. Imprisoned, tortured, and exiled to the Russian interior, she never wavered. Through her strength and sacrifice, hundreds of Anash families were saved.

By Rabbi Shmuel Raskin

The following memories and stories about Mrs. Tzipa Kozliner a”h were emotionally shared by her son, Reb Mottel Kozliner a”h, to his daughter, Mrs. Doba Raskin. It was a difficult process for him, as recalling his mother stirred deep and painful emotions. Together with her son, Rabbi Shmuel Raskin, she transcribed and prepared the material for publication. But before it was ever printed, the pages were misplaced — and remained lost for 24 years. Only recently were they rediscovered, and we are honored to finally share them.

On the 13th of Tishrei, 5760, Mrs. Tzipa Kozliner, a truly remarkable woman and wife of the well-known chossid R’ Chaim Shneur Zalman Kozliner, known as “Chazak,” passed away. Amazingly, on that very day, her husband had passed away 16 years earlier, and 52 years before that, his father had also passed away on the same date.

Many stories have been told about the Kiddush Hashem experienced by Chabad Chassidim, behind the Iron Curtain, during the brutal years of Stalin’s regime. Mrs. Kozliner was one of the notable figures of Chabad during those dark days of Stalin’s rule. A large part of her life was devoted to fighting against the cruel and bloodthirsty regime that controlled millions. A small woman who stood up to the Soviet beast, and with Hashem’s help, she succeeded.

For Tzipa Kozliner, hiskashrus to the Rebbe and the qualities of chesed and giving were a lifelong path, deeply rooted from an early age in her father’s home. Her father, Rabbi Chaim Elazar Garelik, a”h, was a distinguished chossid of the Rebbe Rashab. Despite Soviet oppression forcing religion underground, he ran a large cheder under constant threat and raised the orphans of another courageous chossid. After surviving a serious lung illness, he endured harsh interrogations and exile in Kazakhstan. Through it all, he remained strong and urged his daughter to send her son to learn with him.

When Tzipa came of age, she married the devoted chossid Rabbi Chaim Shneur Zalman Kozliner, son of the famed “Baruch Yosef der Melamed” from Disna.

By marrying Rabbi Chaim Zalman, Tzipa took upon herself a life of constant wandering and danger. Due to his deep involvement with Tomchei Tmimim and the underground yeshiva network, they were always on the run from the KGB. Their home became a covert base for Chabad activities, and many chassidim found shelter there – something that could have cost them their lives. The mesirus nefesh was so great, that much of it remains known only within the family, without public recognition.

Because her husband was constantly on the move, Tzipa agreed to her father’s request – sent from his place of exile – to send him her young son. She sent her seven-year-old Mottel to learn with his grandfather in Shymkent, Kazakhstan. The harsh conditions of the area brought deadly diseases like typhus and fever, and living there was extremely dangerous – it was no coincidence the Soviets chose it as a place of exile.

Having learned about the power a chassidishe farbrengen, Tzipa went over to a group of chassidim who were farbrenging and asked them to give a bracha that her son would not fall ill. They did and miraculously, during the three years he was there, he never needed so much as a thermometer.

This life of secrecy, her deep hiskashrus to the Rebbe, and her faith in the strength of chassidim shaped Tzipa into someone uniquely suited to carry out the quiet but critical role that became central to her life and to the survival of Chabad chassidus in Soviet Russia. Thanks to her courage, hundreds of Anash were saved.

In late 5704 (1944), a Soviet-Polish agreement allowed Polish citizens exiled in the USSR to return. Many Jews seized the chance and Chabad chassidim flocked to Lvov, the key crossing point. Their appearance – especially beards – drew attention from the secret police. Some urged shaving to blend in, but Reb Mendel Futerfas instructed they may travel on Shabbos but under no circumstances shave their beard.

Reb Leibel Mochkin led a secret committee to organize documents, arrange border crossings, and keep the operation quiet. They secured papers for hundreds of families, but just before departure, the plan was exposed. Bribes were needed to salvage it, and the funds were raised in time to move forward.

When it came time to deliver the documents and money for authorization — an operation that involved immense risk — the committee selected one person out of the 500 Chassidim for this mission: Mrs. Tzipa Kozliner.

She was known for her wisdom, courage, reliability, and absolute discretion. For about two weeks, she held secret meetings with government officials, paid the required bribes, and diplomatically explained the source of the money as “a gift from a textile factory.” She was entrusted with the list of approximately 300 people, plus many more accompanying documents, and was tasked with submitting them for final approval.

It was Friday, Parshas Toldos, Shabbos Mevorchim Kislev, 5707 (1946). Tzipa arrived at the government office in Lvov carrying 68 identity certificates – each one for a separate family, with photos of the heads of the household attached. Everyone involved knew the risk. Her husband was a wanted man, with a death sentence hanging over him. Anyone caught could expect brutal interrogation. Worse, their family members would be treated like lepers – “untouchables” – abandoned out of fear.

But mesirus nefesh doesn’t ask questions. That Friday, with over 500 Chassidim anxiously waiting for the green light to leave the Soviet Union, Tzipa entered the office. She stayed inside for a short while, and when she came out, she was visibly shaken. She told her escort that she urgently needed to speak with Rabbi Leibel Mochkin. But he signaled to her that they were being watched and quickly disappeared.

Moments later, two agents approached her and pointed toward a waiting car. She was taken away on the spot. Chaos followed.

It turned out to be a well-planned Soviet trap. The government had no intention of approving the documents. What they really wanted were the photos so they could identify the anash families and wait for them out. Sooner or later, they figured, the Jews stuck in Lvov would give up and return to their homes and that’s when the Soviets would swoop in.

To make things worse, they let Tzipa keep the documents during the arrest, so they could be used as incriminating evidence. The situation was dire. All the identity papers, and the large sum of money raised for bribes and logistics, were now in Soviet hands. With the border sealed and their names exposed, return was impossible, and escape seemed out of reach.

But here came the miracle.

The Soviets, convinced they had caught the ringleader, relaxed. Their attention was entirely on Tzipa. Surveillance dropped. They assumed the “birds were all in the net.” This miscalculation was the salvation.

The Chassidim regrouped. Funds were raised again. False documents were created, and new plans drawn. One by one, the families listed on Tzipa’s certificates crossed the border in three large transports during the winter of 5707.

But for Tzipa and her family, the journey wasn’t to freedom – it was to suffering and strength.

Once the Soviets realized how many people had escaped, they were furious. They began widespread arrests of anyone connected to the effort. Some were executed without trial. When they couldn’t find Rabbi Leibel Mochkin, they arrested his brother instead and tortured him.

Fears mounted for Tzipa, now labeled an “enemy of the people.” The Frierdiker Rebbe sent a message: try to bribe the investigators at least to secure a formal trial.

A trial was eventually arranged in absentia. Chassidim around the world said Tehillim. On the 14th of Shevat, under brutal interrogation, she felt she couldn’t hold on much longer. A global Chabad fast day was declared.

Despite the beatings, she refused to give up any names. The KGB sent her file to Moscow, but officials there called it weak and sent two senior interrogators to start over from scratch. Their job was to break her. They taunted her: “We’ve cracked sharper minds than yours. You won’t be the exception.”

The terror was constant. Just standing in front of them paralyzed her. But she stayed firm. She said nothing.

Eventually, she was sentenced to ten years of hard labor – a virtual death sentence. Ten years of starvation, forced labor, freezing cold, filth, and suffering. And she would have to endure all of it while keeping Shabbos, kashrus, and Yiddishkeit as best she could.

There was deep concern that she would be shipped off to some remote, horrific corner of the Soviet Union – the kind of place only a monster like Stalin could invent.

The night they handed down the court ruling, Mrs. Kozliner had a dream. She saw herself sitting before three elderly Yiden – a heavenly Beis Din. She told them that she had just been sentenced to ten years in prison. The three men looked at her and replied, “Don’t worry, you won’t sit for more than a year,” and each one gave her a personal bracha. Tzipa believed the dream.

A year passed from the day she was first arrested and taken for interrogation but nothing happened. Then she realized: the dream didn’t refer to her arrest but to the day of the sentencing. So she began counting again. Another year went by, and still – nothing.

Her imprisonment was a descent into the depths of gehinnom. Every night, the interrogators would question her until six in the morning. The prison rules stated that no sleeping was allowed in the cells outside of designated hours, so after a night of interrogation, she would be forced straight to work. At some point during the day, she’d collapse from exhaustion, only to be shaken awake minutes later for another round of interrogation.

This relentless cycle was meant to break her body and mind, to confuse her thinking and extract a confession. But she stayed strong. Her face remained frozen, showing no sign of fear or pain. Her heart may have been pounding, but on the outside she gave nothing away. She was determined: they would not break her.

And this wasn’t someone who looked the part of a hero. Tzipa was petite, frail, soft-spoken and a refined, aristocratic woman. The kind of person who wouldn’t drink Russia’s water unless it was boiled first, who wouldn’t take a step barefoot. And yet she stood her ground against some of the most brutal forces in the Soviet machine with courage and iron will.

The interrogators grilled her over and over about her ties to the underground network. She denied everything and refused to reveal any information. She claimed she had merely been asked to deliver a package in exchange for food and a place to sleep, and had no idea who the people were or what they were involved in.

At that time, the Frierdiker Rebbe had instructed to pay a second enormous ransom for her release, this time to get her out of the camp itself. The money was handed over to camp officials, and the merit of this rescue was due in no small part to her sister, Mrs. Musia Katzenelbogen, a”h, who risked her life and did all she could to make it happen.

But there was a major legal obstacle: Under Soviet law, once a sentence had been handed down, no court had the authority to overturn it. The chief prosecutor in Kiev searched for a workaround. The only loophole? A court within the prison system could reverse a sentence but getting those judges to the remote camp was nearly impossible.

And then – another miracle. A prisoner in the same camp murdered a fellow inmate. The prison judges had to be brought in to deal with the case. While there, they quietly modified Tzipa’s sentence and gave her release papers.

From the moment she received the release order, she was overwhelmed with emotion. She quickly gathered her documents and made sure everything was in order. But for some reason, they kept her waiting for four days without explanation.

Later she realized why. She had entered the camp on the morning of 7 Menachem Av, 5707, and left it at night on 6 Menachem Av, 5708 – exactly one full year to the day. Her dream had been fulfilled in detail.

At the Yud-Beis Tammuz farbrengen earlier that year, in front of a large crowd, the Frierdiker Rebbe publicly gave her a bracha for her release and blessed her with many more brachos.

Even two years later, when she was called in to testify as a character witness for Reb Leibel Mochkin – who by then had already made it to Paris – she insisted she didn’t know who he was. The interrogators scoffed, “Maybe they think you’re a hero back in Lemberg. But not here.” They were wrong. She was a hero. Everywhere.

Her ordeal was far from over. A year after her miraculous release, on Shabbos Selichos 5709 (1948), a new blow struck: her husband was arrested. This time, he was sentenced to ten years in prison – in connection with the Lemberg affair.

Her son, Reb Mottel Kozliner, a”h, shared how the possuk, “Listen, my son, to your father’s rebuke, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching,” reflected the way his mother educated him. She did not give harsh rebuke but educated through teaching. When she wanted to correct something, she would say: “This is how such-and-such a chossid acted,” or “Chassidim say,” or “It is written that…”

When he finally received an exemption from army service after much effort, his mother was very happy and said: “In earlier years, those who received an exemption would spend three years in shul, learning Torah intensely in place of the three years of army service. But today, since you cannot find a shul where you can be fully immersed for those three years, you must do something else.”

She lived for thirty years with her husband in Nachlas Har Chabad, and after her husband’s passing, she lived in the home of her daughter, Mrs. Devorah Boroshansky.

She never spoke about her imprisonment, and anyone who saw her would never have guessed that behind this gentle woman was a rare story of courage and strength, even by the harsh standards of those times. She was pleasant, very wise, a woman of valor and diligence, and she never complained or expressed bitterness toward anyone.

Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren knew that “when Bubbe gave a bracha, it would come true,” and they always sought to be bentched by her.

May she be a heavenly advocate for her family, her descendants, and for all of Klal Yisroel and may we soon merit the time of “Hakitsu v’ranenu shochnei afar” and her among them.