“Europa” Rescue Plan

The Europa Plan was devised by the semi-underground Jewish organization Pracovna Skupina (Working Group) in Slovakia to spare the Jews of Europe from extermination by means of ransom. In the summer of 1942, a group of activists at the Ustredna Zidov (Jewish Center) in Slovakia sought to end the deportation of Slovak Jews to extermination camps. One of the people whom these activists tried to influence was Dieter Wisliceny, the SS officer who served as the Jewish affairs adviser to the government of Slovakia. The plan was to bribe him with a substantial sum of U.S. dollars. The deportations did come to an end after the group reached agreement with Wisliceny on the sum to be paid (between $40,000 and $50,000). Although there is no evidence that it was Wisliceny´s intervention that brought the deportations to an end, or that there was any such intervention on his part, the members of the group believed this to be the case. Encouraged by what the group regarded as a success, and stunned by reports received from Poland about the fate of Jews deported there, one of its leading members, Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel, suggested that an attempt be made to end the extermination process in Poland and to assist Jews who had already been deported. On the basis of ties that two members of the group-Gisi Fleischmann and Andrej Steiner-had established with Wisliceny, a plan was worked out. It became known by various names: the Europa Plan; the Rabbis´ Plan; and, the Great Plan. The substance of the plan was that in exchange for an end to the Germans´ deportations and exterminations, the Jews of the Free World would pay them a large sum in hard currency-$2 million-$3 million. Negotiations over the plan continued for nearly a year, from the fall of 1942 until August 1943, when Wisliceny brought them to an end, because the scheduled payments did not arrive. In the course of the negotiations, the Working Group made attempts to save the Jews of Greece through Wisliceny, and to establish contact between the SS and several Hungarian Jewish leaders. The members of the Working Group were convinced that the Europa Plan failed because the requisite funds had not been provided. In response to its queries, Jewish organizations and institutions in Switzerland and Istanbul informed the group that the money was unavailable and that the transfer of funds to Axis countries was prohibited. The negotiations conducted by the Germans in Hungary concerning the rescue of Jews-“Blood for Goods”-were a direct sequel to the Europa Plan. To this day, the plan has remained the subject of searching debate. No clear-cut evidence has been found that the SS was indeed ready to make a deal with the Jews in exchange for money; the only accounts to this effect are testimonies given by Working Group members and by Wisliceny. Because the appeals and entreaties of the Group were sometimes met with disdain, derision, and callousness, the surviving members of the Working Group smarted under feelings of frustration and bitterness.