In July 1931, an article was published in the "Haaretz" newspaper, which was issued in Mandatory Palestine, about the political processes taking place in the Soviet Union. Among other things, the foreign delegation of the ZS party ("Zionist-Socialists") in the USSR, which published this material in the newspaper, wrote about the arrests of Zionists in Saratov. One of the arrested was named Sofia Rolnik. This young woman was already being tried for the second time. However, the authors of the article were mistaken: Sofia Rolnik was sent for three years not to Kazakhstan, where she had already been, but to a much harsher region – Eastern Siberia.

In total, the heroine of the Zionist underground, Sofia Rolnik, spent 22 years in imprisonment and exile. Defying the bloody Moloch, she survived so that we could learn her story, as well as the story of those fighters for the Jewish state who could not witness its birth.

Prisoner of Zion Sofia Rolnik was born in Nikolaev in December 1904 into the family of Hertz Rolnik and Gitel (Katy) Segal. In addition to Sofia, the Rolnik family had sons: the eldest, Mikhail, and the youngest, Vladimir.

The girl's mother was a piano teacher by profession. The father, Hertz Rolnik, was once a yeshiva student, but then he was captured by the idea of Haskalah – Jewish Enlightenment, from which he later distanced himself, becoming a Menshevik and a staunch assimilationist.

However, there was a convinced Jewess in the family – her paternal grandmother. Very religious, this elderly woman spent all her free time reading the Torah in Yiddish translation. The grandmother often spoke about the history of the Jews, their sufferings, especially about the pogroms that she personally experienced. It was this grandmother who significantly influenced Sonia Rolnik's attitude towards her roots, as well as her views on the fate of the Jewish people.

Since childhood, Sofia spoke only Russian with her parents, but at the age of thirteen, she persuaded her mother to hire a Hebrew teacher for her. The lessons did not last long, but the girl managed to master the basics of the language and basic vocabulary. Her national education continued in the company of the hired teacher, who prepared her for admission to a commercial school, where there was no quota for Jews. The teacher was a patriot of Eretz Israel, and every Saturday, instead of regular lessons, she arranged a day of Jewish history for her ward.

The enthusiasm for the national movement did not bypass the girl's older brother. In 1920, he became a member of the Zionist youth circle "Maccabi," which appeared in Nikolaev with his direct participation.

The Nikolaev organization "Maccabi" was a small circle not connected with other organizations. Its members studied Jewish history, the geography of Palestine, and the history of Zionism. The young men and women were staunch Hebraists, but they decided to start with Yiddish, which they mastered just as poorly.

One day Misha approached his sister with a conspiratorial look and told her that the youth of Nikolaev were planning to emigrate to Palestine and build a country for all Jews there. Sonia did not need to be told about Zionism; such thoughts had long been on her mind. "You should think carefully, because there may be serious complications, there may be arrests, and everything else..." warned Mikhail about the possible hardships of underground life. But this did not scare Sonia at all. Without hesitation, she agreed to join the circle.

In 1921, her brother Mikhail and several of the most active members of the Nikolaev organization decided to make Aliyah. Considering themselves prepared for hard work for the benefit of Eretz Israel, they secretly crossed the border and set out for the Middle East. Although the Nikolaev circle lost its organizers, the remaining youth did not give up. Especially since the Zionist movement in southern Ukraine began to gain momentum. Sofia Rolnik, left behind by her brother, and her comrades began energetically recruiting supporters into their ranks. Soon, more knowledgeable comrades from Odessa came to learn about their successes. The Nikolaev residents received an offer to join the organization "Jugend ZS," which was the youth wing of the party "Tseirei Zion – Zionim-Socialistim."

The Socialist Zionists pledged to help with instructors, literature, and even sending the most worthy members to Palestine. The members of the "Maccabi" circle agreed: their views fully corresponded to the program of the left Zionists. If they were to build a Jewish state, it would be through hard work on their own land, with their own hands! With unprecedented perseverance, backed by a large movement, Sonia Rolnik and her comrades began to agitate for "Jugend ZS" among the youth of Nikolaev and nearby Jewish agricultural colonies. In addition to lectures and conversations, the young people had the opportunity to teach their members the necessary skills for life in Palestine. In Odessa, the "Jugendists" organized gardens, locksmith workshops, and even a sewing workshop, where preparation for Aliyah was conducted day and night. The Zionists also had an underground publishing house that printed magazines with information about Eretz Israel and the latest news of the movement.

In 1924, the young people took to the streets for the first time, releasing leaflets to spread in the cities. To confuse the "organs" and throw them off, it was decided as follows: the residents of Nikolaev would take responsibility for Odessa, and the Odessans would be responsible for the action in Nikolaev.

Before heading to the city by the Black Sea, Sofia Rolnik was given packets for the Odessa leadership – lists of addresses where leaflets could be sent, as well as the printed program of the party. The youth conducted a brilliant propaganda campaign in Odessa. Leaflets were distributed even at theatrical performances, communist meetings, various official conferences, and other large gatherings. The whole city learned that the Komsomol was not the only youth organization in the USSR, and that Jewish boys and girls dreamed of their own free country.

The authorities' reaction did not take long. In September 1924, mass arrests began in Odessa and Nikolaev. Sofia Rolnik managed to evade the Chekists at that time, but the next year things did not go so smoothly. While studying at the Nikolaev Pedagogical Institute and working with teenagers with great pleasure, Sonia Rolnik decided to organize a "Jugend ZS" cell in the Yefingar agricultural colony.

After several meetings in the colony, Sofia Rolnik was detained during the next meeting. They found nothing suspicious on her, but she was given a summons to appear at the Nikolaev regional branch of the GPU. Arriving in Nikolaev, she saw several of her comrades, who informed her that she urgently needed to leave for Odessa. It turned out that uninvited guests had already visited her home, and the only salvation from the Chekists was to flee to another city.

In Odessa, her comrades welcomed her with open arms. There was a shortage of professional instructors from the ZS party in the city, and living without registration allowed a party activist to fully devote themselves to the movement. Illegal workers could not work anywhere, so they automatically became professional party workers living at the party's expense. However, Sonia did not even have enough money for a modest breakfast, and she had to spend the night at the apartments of party members, often met with sour faces from parents who understood the danger their children were getting into.

On May 1, 1926, the ZS party decided to mark the holiday with agitation again. Sofia was responsible for the action, which was supposed to take place in the Odessa Botanical Garden. Distributing leaflets to the young Zionists on the long-awaited day, Rolnik went towards the French Boulevard. Suddenly, two plainclothes officers approached her at the park's exit. Presenting an arrest warrant and conducting a search, the Chekists immediately began searching Sonia's pockets. She managed to discard the plan of the May Day procession and the one remaining leaflet, but her wards were caught in the park red-handed. As minors, they were soon released, but Sonia Rolnik was taken to the local OGPU office.

The girl was interrogated liberally. Obviously aware from the agency who was before him, the investigator patiently listened to Sonia's stories of her complete innocence. A few days later, Sonia's mother came for a visit from Nikolaev. Sonia did not hear any reproaches, but she received a coded message from her fellow party members: the leadership officially allowed her to apply for a "substitute."

With the assistance of the organization "Assistance to Political Prisoners" and personally by Ekaterina Peshkova, the wife of Gorky, many Zionists were allowed to replace their exile with emigration to Mandatory Palestine. However, independently arrested Socialist Zionists usually did not submit applications for replacement, obeying party discipline. Despite the decision of the party's Central Committee, Sofia Rolnik refused. As a frail and sickly young woman, she feared she would be a burden to the actively developing Eretz Israel. On the other hand, Rolnik believed that exposing the party ranks in the USSR would be a mistake. After several waves of arrests in Odessa and other cities, the movement found itself decapitated. After serving her sentence, Sofia Rolnik planned to return to the underground.

After four months of interrogation and two months of the transit stage, the girl found herself in Alma-Ata. For Zionist activities, she was given three years of exile. In exile, Zionists lived very poorly, with no job opportunities. They were saved from starvation by forming small communes, a practice adopted by exiles of all ranks and professions. Occasionally, they received remittances from relatives, even less frequently – parcels from completely unknown individuals from Palestine. The latter greatly inspired Sofia and other exiles, realizing that friends and comrades from sunny Tel Aviv were sending them parcels. Three times a week, exiles had to register with the GPU, and those who did not show up immediately began to be sought. This is not counting the surveillance of "political" figures and harassment such as constantly delayed money transfers. Cases of suicide were not uncommon in exile, including among Zionists.

In 1927, the commune where Sofia Rolnik lived was disbanded. The Zionist was transferred to Kokshetau in northern Kazakhstan. And six months before the end of her exile, the girl was sent even further – 90 kilometers from the city. This was due to her principled stance and bold behavior at the GPU. Shortly before her release, Chekists usually summoned people for a conversation to check the results of the "re-education" of political opponents. The conversation with Sonia did not go well. The cunning GPU officer was initially very polite: "You see, I am not afraid to express my views, but you are afraid." To this, Rolnik responded provocatively: "You know, under the old regime, your comrades in the gendarmerie did not talk about their political views." – "So, according to you, we are the gendarmerie?" The girl did not hesitate to respond: "In relation to us, you play the same role." That was the end of the conversation with the Chekist. Early in the morning, Sonia was put on a sled and taken even further away from civilization in forty-degree frost.

Sofia Rolnik was released from her first exile in July 1929. She was prohibited from living in Ukraine and several other regions, so she decided to go to Saratov, where many of her comrades had gathered. In the city, she found work as a statistician at the hydrometeorological bureau. Quickly realizing that repression in the Soviet Union would only intensify, Sofia decided to leave for Palestine after all. Surprisingly, the paperwork from Peshkova arrived quickly: the Soviet government allowed Rolnik to leave. However, the process with the British entry certificate dragged on extremely slowly. And soon, this certificate became unnecessary. On December 24, 1930, Sofia Rolnik was arrested for the second time.

As it turned out during the investigation, the Zionists – a group of 10 people – were reminded of their regular meetings in Saratov. Their political discussions, debates, and reports, even jokes about party members, were carefully documented by someone and immediately reported to the authorities. After four months of harsh detention and interrogations, by the decision of the Special Meeting at the Collegium of the OGPU on April 20, 1931, Sofia Rolnik was sentenced to three years of exile in Eastern Siberia.
In Yeniseysk, Sofia met many comrades from the movement: Isaac Elkanovich from Odessa, Motl Belotserkovsky, Hirsh Smilansky, Wolf Lvovich, who later perished in the camp, and the real legend – "Mikita," a member of the Central Committee of the ZS, Misha Weisbein, who returned under a false name from Palestine but was caught by the authorities.

Moishe Weisbein was supposed to revive the Zionist-Socialist movement in the USSR, but most likely, he was being watched even from Palestine. His time in the underground was destined to be short. Mikita was a true leader and soon won Sofia's heart after their meeting. The Zionists did not bother with formalities in such conditions; they lived together in a civil union, but everyone considered Sonia and Mikita as spouses.

Having served her second term of exile, in 1934 Sofia Rolnik was released with a "clean" passport. Moishe Weisbein initially lived with Sofia in Kherson, but then the couple parted ways. Sonia registered with her aunt in Dnipro, where she found work as a planner-accountant in the pharmacy management office. Moishe Weisbein moved to Kremenchuk, and along with another prominent member of the ZS, Yakov Vigderzon, began writing a new program for the ZS party. The group of the most determined, including Sofia Rolnik, had no intention of deviating from the Zionist movement. Weisbein, Vigderzon, Sofia Rolnik, and several other Zionists distributed the new program among trusted individuals, thus attempting to restore their movement in the Soviet Union.

However, the daring individuals failed in their endeavor. In 1937, the NKVD arrested Isaac Elkanovich, Moishe Weisbein (known to the Chekists as Solomon Kofman-Vygodsky), many comrades in Tver – almost all the Zionists who had once been in exile with Sonia in Yeniseysk.