As early as November 1939, dozens of branches of Freedom were active in the Soviet area, continuing to promote their Zionist, socialist, and pioneer values. Of the four main leaders, two were women: Zivia, who managed communications and intelligence, and Sheindel Schwartz, who coordinated educational activity. Sheindel was romantically involved with a third leader, Yitzhak Zuckerman, who became known by his nom de guerre, Antek.
Zivia, based in Kovel, toured the area, connecting comrades. “We raced about like madmen in the face of constant and mortal danger in an attempt to contact lost and remote members of the movement” she later wrote. She helped comrades find sustenance and comfort, but also focused on identifying escape points, trying to get people illegally to Palestine via Romania. Even though her superiors would not let her start an underground movement to fulfill her socialist Zionist aims, Zivia persisted. “It was impossible for us not to establish the pioneer-youth underground.”
She sent her boyfriend Shmuel on one of the escape routes that she’d organized, but he was caught, imprisoned, and disappeared. Devastated, Zivia kept her feelings private, and threw herself even more fiercely into work.
Zivia was in demand. Serious Frumka, who had already returned to Warsaw to lead the youth there, wrote to the Freedom leadership to request that her dear friend Zivia return too, claiming that she’d be the best person to deal with the new Nazi government. Everyone senior had fled Warsaw, leaving that vital city with only second-tier captains who were ill-prepared to liaise with German authorities or with Poles.
Because of the growing Soviet threat, Zivia was supposed to relocate to Vilna, a city newly controlled by Lithuania, which she felt was Freedom’s way of protecting her. She resisted this coddling, insisting that she go to Warsaw to help guide her movement, to comfort the youth whose lives had been thrown into chaos, and to promote pioneer education and Labor Zionist goals. As usual, she made her own decisions and plunged headfirst into the fire.
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On New Year’s Eve 1939, Freedom held an all-night conference, which was part fete, part first official underground meeting. “We ate, drunk, and made merry,” Zivia wrote later, “and between drinks discussed the Movement and its future course.” In a member’s apartment in Lvov, Zivia feasted on chocolate, sausage, and black bread with butter, and listened as leaders reiterated the importance of keeping the Zionist flame alive, of “upholding Jewish humanity” in the Soviet area and in German-occupied Poland.
That night, despite pleas from Antek, the tall, blond, and handsome coleader with whom Zivia had become increasingly close, she left in the direction of Nazi-occupied Poland, afraid of what she’d encounter and doubting whether she would be able to withstand life in the new regime. She was saddened to leave friends with whom she’d spent stormy months engaged in dangerous work, whom she’d come to rely on to greet her at the end of difficult missions. But Zivia was also determined. “While I was still preoccupied with these grim thoughts,” she later testified, “the train thundered to the platform, and people pushed their way into the cars.” She felt warm hands, warms tears, and then she too was off, lurching away from her comrades.
Zivia was smuggled back into Nazi territory in a plan arranged by Frumka. She endured a long journey of train rides and that all-night, snow-drenched hike alongside a group of male Polish students who were trying to get home. Once the group reached the border town, their courteous attitude toward Zivia changed. In Soviet land, a Jewish mate was an asset, but in Nazi territory, Zivia became an inferior being. At the station, they watched as a German slapped a group of Jews and told them they could not wait in the same waiting room as Poles and Aryans. Zivia’s group complained that she too should be removed, but she didn’t react. “I clenched my teeth and didn’t move an inch.” Zivia had to develop a new type of inner strength; the ability to hold her head high in the fog of degradation. The train car was nearly pitch black—there was no lighting—and everyone hid from the Germans. A man heaved a sigh, and Zivia watched as he was brutally attacked by a group of Poles who accused him of giving “a Jewish sigh.” He was thrown out of the carriage.