Willy and the Great Plan - Plan Europe

Despair over the situation of the deported Jews was the driving force of the clandestine work of the Working Group. Gisi Fleischmann and her team were informed of the situation by refugees and from written reports from Poland. In the Autumn of 1942 they believed that, with the help of bribes and personal contacts, they would manage to get the deportations halted. Encouraged by the deceptive victory, they began to contemplate additional options to help the Jewish community. The Europa Plan, or, as Gisi called it – the Great Plan, was a rescue plan to exchange Europe’s Jews for money. The idea arose within the Working Group in Slovakia, through the unlikely alliance between Zionists and ultra-Orthodox Jews led by a Zionist and woman, Gisi Fleischmann, upon suggestion by her cousin, Rabbi Michael Weissmandl. This was most likely the only European group that addressed the rescue of European Jewry, not only hoping to save their own community, but reaching out to the European dimension. Gisi Fleischmann supported and largely kept implementing the plan.