In the spring and summer of 1942,
while the Jews were being deported from Slovakia,
a group of community activists was formed in Bratislava,
later known as the Working Group.
This group evolved as an expression of dissatisfaction
with the official leadership of the Jewish Center in Bratislava, the Ustredna Zhidov.
Most of the members of the Working Group were working concurrently
in different departments of the Jewish Center.
The Working Group's main aim at that time
was to stop the deportation,
which meant we had already a hunch
from the news which we had received from Poland
that deportation is not work, deportation means death.
So naturally we had to do everything possible to stop deportations from Slovakia.
And that is where the bribing started.
In June 1942,
after more than 40,000 Jews had already been deported from Slovakia,
the Working Group decided to adopt a policy of bribery
in order to halt the deportations.
The funds were donated by Jews, both from within Slovakia and outside.
Gisi Fleischmann, one of the heads of the Group,
also tried to obtain funds from Jewish organizations abroad.
In his testimony at the Eichmann Trial,
Pinhas Freudiger,
head of the Orthodox community in Budapest,
described the arrival of the representatives from Bratislava.
In 1942, when the edict began in Slovakia,
in the summer of '42, Dr. Abeles and the late Gisi Fleischmann
came as a delegation to Budapest to ask for money for the labor camp
that was in Sered and a few other places
and they asked for money because they had none,
it cost a lot of money to provide food in a labor camp
and they weren't very successful.
Members of the Working Group attempted to bribe a senior official
in the Slovak Ministry of the Interior.
At the same time,
Ondrej Steiner bribed the Slovak government official
in charge of the labor camps.
Dr. Kovac bribed Vasek
and told him that he will get 100,000 dollars every month
if deportation is stopped.
I gave Dr. Pecuch 10,000 dollars again if he is helping to stop deportation.
Was it dollars or Slovak crowns? -Slovak crowns, not dollars.
Members of the Working Group offered a bribe to Dieter Wisliceny,
Eichmann's representative in Bratislava,
so that he would halt the deportation of the Jews from Slovakia.
Weissmandel said that it is not enough if we are successful on the Slovak side,
we must start now to speak with Wisliceny and bribe Wisliceny
that he should stop the deportations.
Rabbi Weissmandel induced a UZ
official who enjoyed a certain degree of confidence on the part of Wisliceny,
to offer Wisliceny money for putting a halt to the deportations.
Wisliceny agreed,
and with the help of Hungary, $40,000-$50,000
were collected in Slovakia
and handed over to Wisliceny as a first offering.
Even after I read many accounts from the historians,
I still say that it is true seemingly that many different actions had been going on
behind the scenes,
even with the Catholic church, even with the Nuncio,
even with some intervention from some ministers
in the Slovak circles who had been against deportation,
the main reason that deportation was stopped
was the successful bribery of the Slovak people
who had been really the main directing the deportation.
Certainly, Weissmandel who was always the so-called partisan rabbi,
came to one of the meetings and said,
If we succeeded to stop the deportations from Slovakia,
why don't we try now to stop deportations
or the killing in Europe?
And that is how the so-called Europa Plan was born.
The lull in the deportations from Slovakia
convinced the Working Group of the efficacy of the bribery policy.
In light of this, one of the heads of the Group,
Rabbi Michael Weissmandel initiated the Europa Plan,
the rescue of all of Europe's Jews in return for a ransom.
They believed that if world Jewry would raise the money,
the deportation of Jews from all corners of Europe would cease.
As part of the negotiations with Wisliceny,
Rabbi Weissmandel
and Ondrej Steiner, who later conducted these negotiations,
suggested to Wisliceny that in return for an enormous sum of money,
the deportations be halted from all over Europe.
We sent calls for help to the whole world.
When we saw the first two live witnesses from Auschwitz,
two Slovak youngsters who had escaped
and who told us for the first time about gas chambers, about dogs,
we- and in particular Rabbi Weissmandel, sent reports out to the whole world.
He proposed to Sally Mayer
that we don't intend to have this officially done
but there are enough illegal and underground sources
how that money could be done.
But seemingly the Jewish leadership outside Slovakia just didn't believe it
and couldn't put together this money.
I told Wisliceny very frankly
that we have trouble to get the money partly because
they don't believe that you will really live up to your promises.
Why don't we try now to make something which would be a proof
that you can live up to your promises?
That is how Gisi Fleischmann and I proposed to him
to make a children's action.
The children's action was supposed to be
that 1000 children from Poland should be sent to Theresienstadt
and we would pay for this, for that action,
independent from the Europa Plan,
200,000 dollars.
100,000 dollars we would pay them
the moment the children arrive to Theresienstadt
and from Theresienstadt we would have sent them to Switzerland
and from Switzerland to Palestine.
And surprising enough, Wisliceny agreed with that.
The children truthfully arrived to Theresienstadt
and we were supposed to give him the 100,000 down payment,
but we just couldn't
and because we couldn't pay this 100,000 dollars,
the children had been sent back to Poland.
In August 1944, the Slovak National Uprising broke out.
In the course of suppressing the uprising,
the Germans renewed the deportation of Slovakia's Jews.
The endeavors of the Working Group,
a unique attempt to save the majority of European Jewry,
ended in failure
and most of its members were caught.
Gisi Fleischmann was arrested,
sent to the Sered camp in Slovakia
and in October 1944, deported to Auschwitz
where she was murdered.
Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel survived after jumping from the deportation train.
His wife and 8 children perished.
Rabbi Weissmandel passed away in 1956 in the United States.
Ondrej Steiner escaped from Bratislava to the mountains.
After the war,
he immigrated to Cuba with his wife and son
and from there to the United States.
Ondrej Steiner passed away in 2013 in the United States.