Holocaust survivor Rachel Zini's legacy of defiance culminates in grandson's leadership of Shin Bet

Explore the remarkable story of Rachel Zini, an Auschwitz survivor whose grandson David Zini now leads Israel’s Shin Bet security service.

By: AXL Media

Published: Apr 18, 2026, 3:55 AM EDT

Source: Information for this report was sourced from Israel Hayom

The Historical Weight of National Security Leadership

The current leadership of Israel's domestic security agency, the Shin Bet, is deeply intertwined with the survival of the Jewish people following the 1944 deportations from Hungary. David Zini, the director of the agency, carries a familial legacy rooted in the Auschwitz extermination camp, where his grandmother, Rachel Zini, was sent alongside her mother and sister. The transition from a prisoner facing execution to the matriarch of a family at the pinnacle of Israel’s intelligence apparatus serves as a symbolic arc of the state’s own development. According to her son, Rabbi Dr. Eliyahu Rehavim Zini, the resilience required to lead such an institution is directly traceable to the defiance shown by survivors during the Holocaust.

Acts of Defiance within the Munitions Factories

During her internment at Auschwitz and subsequent labor in German munitions factories, Rachel Zini performed acts of resistance that nearly cost her life. In one specific instance, she physically intervened when an SS officer set a dog upon another prisoner, striking the officer twice in the face. Although the officer attempted to execute her on the spot, a mechanical failure in his pistol spared her life, resulting instead in a sentence of ninety lashes. Her son, Rabbi Dr. Eliyahu Rehavim Zini, noted that after being unconscious for over a week from the assault, his mother maintained that her actions were justified, viewing the preservation of dignity as a necessity even in the face of death.

Surviving the March and Meeting the Liberators

The final months of the war saw Zini and her mother forced onto a death march covering approximately 650 kilometers, reaching Innsbruck, Austria, in a state of near-total physical collapse. It was during this period of liberation that she met Rabbi Meir Zini, a Jewish officer serving in the Algerian army who was part of the liberating forces. This meeting began a journey that moved the family through North Africa and France before they finally settled in Israel. According to family accounts, the union was viewed by Meir Zini as a literal rebuilding of the Jewish people from the remnants left behind by the Nazi regime.