56 Friday, July 6, 1979

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Gisi Fleischmann: A Heroine Remembered

Washington. As has been sterling, said Wisliceny at
Why did Gisi not go
Changes in
(Continued from Page 1) came to power in Germany
seen from the letter quoted that meeting, the Slovakian
with
them?
Several
per-
Slovakia
"During the past few in 1933 and an increasing
earlier, Gisi was even able transports would stop, al-
sonal considerations
Forces Action
years I have seen such ter- number of Jews from that
to maintain contact with though Jews would still
probably entered the pic-
rible suffering and have had country began to flee to
On Sept. 29, 1940, the her daughters in Palestine have to do forced labor at
ture.
Since
her
husband
to witness the terrible per- Czechoslovakia for safety,
camps inside Slovakia. The
was to die the following Slovak government on a more or less regular
_ secutions and torture to or as a transit stop before
Working Group was given
abruptly
dissolved
all
the
basis.
year he may have been ill
- which our people have been proceeding to more distant
Meanwhile, conditions four weeks to raise the
already; her widowed Jewish organizations in the
exposed, have had to see our , and presumably safer des-
country,
and
in
their
stead
in
Slovakia grew ever money.
mother, Jetty Fischer,
_ marvelous young people, tinations, such as what was
established the Jewish more onerous for the
Gisi at once got in touch
was
definitely
old
and
ail-
amongst them also all the then Palestine.
Council,
or
Ustredna
with
Saly Mayer in Geneva,
country's
small
Jewish
ing. Gisi may have de-
As a leader of the Jewish
girls of your own age sent
Zhidov,
which
Gisi
joined
as
and
with
the Jewish Agency
population
of
89,000.
In
cided not to go in part be- head of the emigration de-
away to the horrors in Po- community Gisi took part in
September 1941, Interior in Istanbul. The cautious
cause
these
two
family
land," she wrote. "When I many operations to aid the
members could not partment; at that point Minister Sano Mach pub- Mayer, fearful of infringing
. see all this like a spectre be- refugees. In 1938, for exam-
emigration from Slovakia lished a stringent 270- Allied currency restrictions
travel.
fore me I daily thank God to ple, she helped organize re-
was still encouraged. In the paragraph Jewish Code. as he was to later witb
, know my children are in scue and relief operations
Furthermore, despite the months ahead she and a The following month the Europa Plan, refused
- Eretz Yisrael; in Eretz, the for a group of Jews from the
appearance of tirelessness handful of daring associates first 238 people were along with the proposal. At
- fulfillment of the ideal for Burgenland who had been she often manages to convey known as the Working shipped from the Jewish last the Jewish Agency
which I live and work .. . left stranded on a sandbank
in retrospect, her own Group were to use the Quarter of Bratislava to came up with the sum Wis-
This life is neither pleasant in the Danube River. Since health seems to have been government-authorized
provincial centers which liceny had named, but not
nor easy. But we, who con- both her associates and her fragile, she is said to have
council as a cover for the had been allotted to until after the deadline had
tinue to believe in human- own writings testify to the
expired.
suffered from a serious saving of hundreds, perhaps them.
'ty, have to do everything fact that she was a person of heart condition.
Meanwhile, from Sept. 18
thousands, of lives.
The process of "de-
1 )ssible both as individuals unusual intelligence, the
Leadership of the Work- Judaizing" the national through Oct. 20, 1942, Wis-
lesson of such incidents
But the overriding con-
`,'d
sts as (a) people to be cannot have been lost on sideration was likely to ing Group gravitated to Gisi economy went on apace; by liceny had emphasized his
_:ing and resilient."
for a variety of reasons. Her .December 1941 more than power by shipping off an-
have been her own feeling sheer intelligence was 10,000 Jewish businesses other thousand Jews in
''''< Giii—Ple-ischmann's own her; she knew what to ex-
that, given the leadership without doubt an asset; so had been liquidated and an- three separate transports.
esiliance, together with pect of Nazism.
It was also in 1938 that posts she held, she might was the simple fact that her other 2,223, worth three bil- But from the time he re-
n. outstanding capacity for
adership, had grown Hitler occupied Austria find ways to help the Bratis- office at No. 6 Edelgasse lion Slasiak crowns, or $8 'ceived the payment de-
)wly over many years. and demanded the dis- lava community if she was in a different building million, had been manded, no more transports
erhaps one of the key ele- memberment of Czechos- stayed on. In her letters two from the rest of the Jewish "Aryanized." And hard moved from Slovakia until
ideas are conveyed with Council offices, making it labor camps for Jews had after the Slovakian upris-
ments in that growth was lovakia, with the
her early discovery of Sudetenland to be ceded nearly equal force: her deep
an ideal setting for clandes- been established at Vyhne, ing of late summer, 1944.
to Germany. The deluded love for the members of her
At this point it is clear
Zionism.
tine conversations. Sered, Novaky and eight
own family and her intense,
When her two brothers, British prime minister,
Her leadership in such other sites.
the Wisliceny's ar-
organizations as WIZO,
. 1- tav and David, became Nevelle Chamberlain, almost maternal solicitude
March 1942 brought the rangements had the ap-
HICEM and the "Joint ' first transports of Slovakian proval of SS chief Hein- -
\ -ested as students in the acceded to this demand for her community.
st idea, Zionist meet- and announced that he
made her a contact with Jews to Auschwitz and rich Himmler, because
In the period following
began to be held in the had secured "peace in the departure of the Fleis-
the outside world whose other extermination cen- Himmler agreed that a
ter family restaurant. our time."
integrity would be ters, beginning with 20,000 $20,000 advance payment
chmann
daughters,
per-
On Oct. 6 of that year
result was that Gisi's
trusted. And her associ- young people, age .18-35. from the Working Group
\
sonal
tragedy
stalked
Gisi
Slovakia, which included
3St, too, was captured.
ate and relative by mar- These initial deportations should be transferred to
as
tragedy
dogged
her
Gisi Fleischmann's native
riage, Rabbi Michale Dov were followed by so-called the SS Chief Office for
- nd 1925 she became
people.
Her
husband
died;
ff the founding mem- city of Bratislava, an:- perhapt this was not unex-
Ber Weissmandel, says he ,,fami, i y,,
transports, which Economy and Adminis-
uf
the Bratislava group nounced its autonomy. The pected when it came. Her
favored her leadership herded old and young, ill tration and did nothing to
4
.i.iZO (the Women's In- following March 14 it be- brother Gustav Fischer, to
for several of these rea- and well into cattle cars to- interfere with his subor-
ternational Zionist Organ- came an independent pup- whom she felt particularly
sons, plus his feeling that gether and shipped them off dinate's continuing dis-
a woman leader would to as-yet-unknown destina- cussions with the Fleis-
ization), and later was cho- pet state of Germany, under close, was beaten by anti-
help minimize dissen- tions.
chmann group.
seii. --t-ii-G - --g,37,;,.'d'ifS SE: on d the presidency of a Catholic Semites and died of his in-
priest, the Rev. Joseph Tiso.
sions and jealousies
Perhaps Himmler, too,
leader.
Stunned,
Gisi
and
her
juries
a
few
days
later.
And
Gisi made a trip to Lon-
She had married, in all
was thinking of the future,
within the group.
group
sent
messengers
after
Gustav's
widow,
in
a
fit
of
likelihood, before her in- don and Paris in the course despondency, committed
The Working Group's the deportees, to learn because in November 1942
volvement with WIZO of that same month. Her suicide a short time later by
secret activities centered where they had been taken the BBC began to carry
began, or at about the purpose was twofold: to leaping from a window
exclusively on the saving of and to bring them money word of the exterminations
same time. Her husband alert Jewish organizations while visiting Gisi.
Jewish lives, the lives of and packages of food. The inside Axis Europe.
was a coffee importer. in relatively safe countries
children in particular. At messengers eventually
Europa Plan
In May 1940, the. first
During the course of their to the mounting threat
first smugglers brought the came upon such camps as
Is
Formulated
relatively brief marriage, posed by Germany, and to conference of the Slovak
children out of Poland to the Auschwitz but could not get
to
Buy Lives
try
to
arrange
asylum
in
Zionist
Organization
was
the Fleischmann were to
relative safety of Slovakia, inside, though rumor had it
foreign countries for refu- held, and Gisi was elected
Within
the Working
have two daughters.
where anti-Jewish meas- that in these places people
Gisi's rise to leadership in gees from the Nazi terror. to its executive. But the
ures did not for some time were worked until their Group someone, probably
Rabbi Weissmandel, had
Jewish circles was rapid; To some extent she suc- organization's activities
approach the murderous strength deserted them, and
formulated the audacious
she seems to have, from the ceeded in the first effort; at were destined to be
level achieved at once in the were then killed. It was to
idea of gambling for the
start, displayed the capacity least she herself was ad- short-lived, for on July
Nazis' Polish operations. As be some time before the
to grow as the responsibility vised in London • not to re- 28 of that year Hitler met the net began to tighten Working Group, and the lives of all Europe's remain-
ing Jews, some one million
placed upon her grew. In the turn to Bratislava. But, with Slovak leaders in
around Slovakian Jews, world, learned more details.
at that point, at a single
late 1920's she headed though she visited many Salzburg, Austria, and
Gisi and her group sent the
By the end of May,
stroke. The idea was later to
WIZO in Bratislava; around embassies, her attempt to the Slovaks agreed to es-
children on to still-quiet 40,000 of the 89,000
tablish a regime on the
1933 she became a member find asylum for the perse-
Hungary, from which num- Slovak Jews had already be called the Europa Plan,
of the working committee of cuted failed to produce any National Socialist pat-
bers of them eventually been deported. Casting and it received encourage-
tne-lemerican
- Jewish
Joint results.
tern
in
their
country.
,
:..,,_
:3
in
.
reached Palestine.
around for ways to end ment from Wisliceny when
---'atribli.t,:
„4 , ,,. . ..-"---,
mite
t e
In August 1939 she re-
the
transports, the Work- he offered to stop the kil-
Money
for
the
Working
a her.: liome turned to Paris, this time for
Soon afterward Dieter
ing
Group
decided to ap- lings everywhere in Europe
Group's activities, which
city. Approximately in 1938 a conference of the Joint Wisliceny of the Reich Se- entailed many bribes, was proach Dieter Wisliceny, except in Poland for the sum
she was selected to head the Distribution Committee on curity Main Office appeared provided for the most part who they had already of $2 millino.
In February 1943, 11C4.,\
local branch of HICEM, and the refugee situation. War in Bratislava as the Slovak by the Geneva office of the bribed with $55,000 to
liceny
was sent to Gr
chosen as amember of the broke out before she could government's "adviser for
Jewish affairs" and the "Joint," with whose repre bring about a temporary where he proved an efficient
Executive of VIZ O's return home, as Hitler in-
halt
to
the
deportations.
sentative,
"Uncle"
Saly
Czechoslovakian ledera- vaded Poland; she managed Slovak Central Office for Mayer, the organization in Wisliceny by now was butcher. At the same time
to return to Bratislava only Economy was founded Bratislava maintained con- being badgered by the he continued negotiations
tion. holocaust
by a roundabout route. It under Augustin Moravek. tact for the most part by Slovak
government, on the Europa Plan with
The Central Office's pur-
was
no
doubt
at
this
point
llori2on
which belatedly, and Gisi and her associates. .
Clouds
Swiss diplomatic pouch.
Serious bargaining
that the decision was made pose was clear and
under some pressure
of Europe Jews
In
time,
through
the
dip-
straightforward: to get Jews
began in May, when Wis-
Meanwhile, .political to send the Fleischmann out of Slovakia's economic lomatic pouches of neutral from the Vatican, was
liceny returned to
events were closing in on children to Palestine for and social life.
countries and through demanding to inspect the Slovakia. At that time
safety.
the Jews of Europe. Hitler
couriers supplied by the conditions under which
Gisi seems to have made
Jewish Agency, the Work- its deported Jews were the formal offer of $2 mil-
ing Group established an living. He may also have lino. Wisliceny decided to
extensive communications wanted to cover himself
to Berlin to present the
network throughout in the event of an Allied go
offer to his superiors;
Europe; its messages on victory.
meanwhile, he guaran-
conditions inside Axis- Working Group member
teed there would be no
occupied and dominated Andrej Steiner succeeded in further deportations be-
`c uing.,
Europe reached Palestine arranging a meeting be-
fore June 10.
,
_• 140 --\.
and the Vatican, and the tween Wisliceny and Gisi
- -
(To be concluded
impact of those messages during the summer of 1942.
next week ...)
was felt in London and. For 50,000 British pounds

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