The Road to Atlanta
By: Ruth Lichtenstein
The Road to Atlanta
During the Holocaust, the Working Group in Slovakia excelled in its efforts to save every Jew, no matter their affiliation. When Yaakov Fuchs, son of historian Avraham Fuchs, asked me to review a book he had completed in which he analyzed the classic poetic dirge on the destruction of European Jewry written by Rabbi Michoel Dov Weissmandl, zt”l, something he said led me to begin searching for Andrej Steiner, who, at the age of almost 100 lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks to Rabbi Yechiel Kalish of Chicago, I spoke to Rabbi Moshe Boruch Parnes of Atlanta, who, it turned out, had been mesader
kedushin at the wedding of Mr. Steiner’s granddaughter. Not long afterwards, I traveled from New York to meet with Mr. Steiner, his surviving son, George, and daughter-in-law, Margie.
For the interview, Mr. Steiner was brought from the senior citizens’ residence where he lives to his children’ beautiful home. Both Rabbi Parnes, who graciously took time from his busy schedule to accompany me, and I were impressed by the obvious respect and admiration shown to him by the younger Steiners, as well as by their warm remembrances of their mother, who passed on some years ago, and the oldest son, Peter, a very young child during the Working Group years who died at the end of last year.
Andrej Steiner, who is a regal man with snowy hair, looks years younger than his actual age. Before we began the actual interview, in a distinctively European accent and manner, he proclaimed that his life’s two most important achievements were saving Jews and his work as an architect.
The Slovakian Working Group
This underground group, founded in the spring of 1942 in Bratislava (Pressburg), Slovakia’s capital, was headed by Mrs. Gisi Fleischmann, Hy”d, a leading Zionist activist, and included Harav Michoel Ber Weissmandl, zt”l, son-in-law of the Nitra Rav and Rosh Yeshivah Harav Shmuel Dovid Ungar, Hy”d; Dr. Tibor Kovacs, Dr. Oskar Neumann, president of the Zionist Histadrut in Slovakia; and Andrej Steiner, a noted architect who headed the UZ’s Department of Labor and Construction. As time passed, several other dedicated activists joined this initial group.
Setting aside their personal views and religious differences, they worked together to accomplish several goals: save Slovakian Jews from deportation to Poland, help Jewish refugees from Poland make their way through Slovakia to relative safety in Hungary, send money and valuables to deported Slovakian Jews suffering near Lublin, fight the antisemitic Slovakian authorities who not only sympathized with the Nazis but who actually paid them 500 Reichsmarks for every Jew deported out of Slovakia, and alert the world to the tragic truth about what was taking place in Nazi-occupied Europe. They also supported thousands of Jews toiling in the three Slovakian forced labor camps, Sered, Novaky and Vyhne, which were designed by Steiner at the Nazis’ behest. The architect not only convinced the Slovakian authorities that they would benefit economically from Jewish labor, he also worked so closely with those in charge of the camps that he was able to bribe Dr. Julius Pecuk, the official in charge, and other camp officials to grant a number of privileges for the suffering Jewish inmates.
In the course of its rescue efforts, the Working Group became famous for negotiations with the Nazis through SS official Dieter Wisliceny, who they bribed along with many Slovakian government officials. Later on, they also worked to achieve what was known as the Europa Plan, an attempt to bribe senior Nazis to halt the “final solution.” When two Slovakian Jews escaped from Auschwitz, the Working Group helped send their report, called the Auschwitz Protocols, to the free world. This was the first eyewitness confirmation that the Nazis are gasing jews in Auschwitz, a truth the Nazis had worked
assiduously to hide from the world through every means of deception. They also attempted to alert Hungarian Jews to the true meaning of the euphemism
“deportation.” And although they called for the bombing of Auschwitz, or at the very least the railroad lines leading into that extermination camp, both pleas were ignored by the Allies.
Historians continue to debate the value of the Working Group’s efforts, with some contending that the two-year halt in deportations from Slovakiaare attributable to other factors. But no one disputes the tremendous efforts they made to alert the free world to the destruction of European Jewry, and to beg for aid in its rescue. Archives abound with the numerous letters and telegrams they sent from the depths of Nazi-occupied Slovakia pleading for the means to salvage the remnants of European Jewry, and Andrej Steiner is a living witness to the battles they waged for one purpose only: rescue.
The Working Group continued their sacred mission until the summer of 1944, when a general Slovakian uprising against the Nazis resulted in the Nazis liquidating the remaining Slovakian Jewish communities and slave labor camps. Both Harav Weissmandl and Mrs. Fleischmann were deported to Auschwitz with clear instructions in German: RU (return undesirable). Harav Weissmandl, managed to jump off the cattle car that took his wife and five children to the gas chambers. After hiding for six months in a bunker outside of Bratislavaalong with a small group of Jews, including the Stropkiver Rebbe, zt”l, he and the group were transferred to the Swiss border and were saved. Gisi Fleischmann, a relative by marriage of Harav Weissmandl, known for her wisdom
and caring heart, refused many opportunities to flee to safety in order to continue her rescue work. She was deported to Auschwitz with the same RU (return undesirable) instructions and was immediately murdered, Hy”d.
Andrej Steiner escaped with his wife and very young son to the Tatra Mountains, where they hid until liberation. After relocating in Cuba he emigrated to Atlanta, Georgia, where he still lives. A secular Jew who throughout the interview displayed great respect for Rabbi Weissmandl, even though he referred to him in the European manner using only his last name, one of Mr. Steiner’s first statements to me when we began talking was about Harav Weissmandl: “I admired him very much.”
In Andrej Steiner’s Own Words
Ruth Lichtenstein: How did you feel about Rabbi Weissmandl?
Andrej Steiner: If there exists something like a Jewish saint, it must be someone like [Rabbi] Weissmandl. He, in my opinion, was a wonderful guy. I was in contact with him even after he came to the United States. He came from Mount Kisco to New York, where we met, because I really admired him.
RL: Who actually started the Working Group?
AS: Gisi Fleischmann. We used to meet in her office, very informally, and these informal meetings became the Working Group.
RL: Whose idea was it to bribe the Nazis?
AS: [Rabbi] Weissmandl was all the time for bribe. Because, he said, if you look at the history of Slovak Jewry, many of the positive steps in many of the things we could achieve were done because of bribery. Dr. Neumann was against bribery, Gisi Fleischmann was not convinced at first, but Rabbi Weissmandl convinced everyone.
RL: Which Jew actually spoke to the Nazis about accepting bribes?
AS: [Karol] Hochberg, but later we realized he was a traitor. He was a young engineer working in the department in charge of preparing statistics for Jewish deportation who got close to Wisliceny, so we asked him to offer the bribe. Later he became very powerful.
RL: Who was Dr. Abeles?
AS: Ernst Abeles was an outside member of our group. When he was saved from being deported thanks to a bribe, it gave [Rabbi] Weissmandl the idea that if it could work for one person it could work for many.
RL: How was the $50,000 bribe demanded by Wisliceny paid?
AS: In two $25,000 installments.
RL: Where did the first installment come from?
AS: Shlomo Stern and his wife, of the Orthodox community. He had the money, in American dollars, buried. During the night they unearthed it and stood the whole night washing and ironing the bills so they shouldn’t smell. So they should look like they had come directly from overseas.
Rabbi Parness: Did you iron it also?
AS: No. I didn’t. It was Sam Stern and his wife.
RP: Where did the Working Group get the remaining $25,000?
AS: Gisi made contact with activists in Hungary and tried to get the money from them. She actually traveled to Hungary, but was not successful. Then
she made contact with Switzerland too.
RL: With whom?
AS: Saly Mayer (The Swiss representative of the American Joint)
RL: And what did Saly Mayer answer?
AS: I think Saly Mayer was against it, because he said American law forbids bribery.
RL: According to Rav Weissmandl’s book, Nathan Schwalb, a Zionist representative from Switzerland, wrote back in Hebrew, “Rak badam tikneh —yehiyeh lanu haaretz.” It’s a very famous line in Hebrew that translates into, “you have to understand that if we Jews are not going to pay with blood, later we are not going to have any right to demand our own country.” Do you remember that?
AS: Yes. That is true.
RL: Who told this to you?
AS: [Rabbi] Weissmandl.
RL: Did you see any letters that came from Switzerlandthat said “We do not believe in bribery”?
AS: No, but [Rabbi] Weissmandl had one. He said that he had a letter.
RL: Do you know where such a letter exists?
AS: I don’t remember.
RL: Rabbi Weissmandl writes that after the war he searched extensive archives and discovered that this letter was missing. Those in charge said that the letter never existed. Scholars now claim that such a letter was never sent, that it was Weissmandl’s imagination. What do you think?
AS: Anything that [Rabbi] Weissmandl said, I considered as true. If he said that he had a letter, I believe yes, he had the letter. I didn’t see the letter, but I believed that he had a letter.
RL: What did Gisi say about Switzerland?
AS: Gisi was upset about them.
RL: Why?
AS: Because [s]he considered that Switzerland had the only possibility to get money. And Switzerland’s negative attitude was hurting her. Because that was one of her main, main connections.
RL: From which group did she expect to get this bribe money?
AS: Both the Orthodox and the Zionists. She did go to both, and had meetings with both.
RL: And she did not get the money?
AS: She did not get the money.
RL: So, the second installment of $25,000 did not materialize and after a short break in deportations, another one left after Rosh Hashanah. In his book Rabbi Weissmandl says that when this happened, he went to the post office and sent telegrams to Hungaryin his father-in-law’s name — he had received permission to do so to help Jewish rescue. The telegram called Orthodox leaders in Hungary to“court,” to a Jewish court case that would be held on the fast approaching Day of Judgment, Yom Kippur, and demanding them to answer why they failed to send the money that could have saved so many Jewish lives.
AS: Oh, I didn’t know that.
RL: According to scholars there were two more deportations in 1942, after Yom Kippur. Do you remember something like that?
AS: I somehow remember, somehow, something like that happened.
RL: The question is, could those deportations have taken place because of the pressure of the Slovakians?
AS: At the time it happened, that was the story. That the pressure was from the Slovaks, and not from the Germans.
RL: But after the bribery the deportations stopped for two years?
AS: Two years!
RL: Rabbi Weissmandl was arrested when the currier smuggling money and valuables into Polandto help Slovakian deportees was captured. While in jail, Rabbi Weissmandl devised the Europa Plan. Is that correct?
AS: Yes. It was [Rabbi] Weissmanl’s plan to give such big bribes that the Germans would halt their destruction of Europe’s remaining Jews. I took the Europa Plan to Wisliceny.
RL: What was his answer?
AS: He was willing to present it to Himmler. He was confident that through Himmler the Europa Plan could be accomplished.
RL: What actually happened?
AS: We couldn’t get Jews outside of Nazi-occupied Europe to send us what we needed. I would say it was one of our group’s biggest failures. Because the Europa Plan was for the Jews a very good plan.
RL: Did Wisliceny say that the Europa Plan failed because of the lack of money?
AS: Yes. Yes. He had the same feeling, that we didn’t live up to our promises, so they cannot live up to their promises. And basically, I really mean, if in this very critical position, the beginning of Europa Plan, we would have had the $100,000, maybe… maybe we could have been helpful in other countries too.
RL: When Rabbi Weissmandl devised the Europa Plan, did you accept it?
AS: I immediately accepted it. I believed in it, too.
RL: Do you believe that the bribe stopped the deportation?
AS: I believe that the working camps which I organized in Sered, Novaky, and Vyhne kept the thousands who worked there safe from beingdeported. So it wasn’t only the bribery. I believe that the work camps and the bribe stopped deportations for those two years.
RL: What happened to the Working Group at the end of the summer in 1944 when a group of Slovakians organized an armed uprising?
AS: The Nazis crushed the revolt and sent in Alois Brunner, an SS officer to liquidate any remaining Jews. So I went with my family into the mountains, where I spent six months.
RL: Where did Gisi and Rabbi Weissmandl go?
AS: [Rabbi] Weissmandl, Gisi, and Dr. Kovacs stayed in Bratislava and were captured by Brunner.
RL: What did you hear about them?
AS: Gisi was sent to Auschwitz. Dr. Kovacs committed suicide in Bratislava. Weissmandl jumped from a train, alone, not with his family, and then he went into hiding in a bunker.
RL: He was rescued by Dr. Rudolf Kastner. Did you ever meet him?
AS: Dr. Kastner came to Bratislava twice. I met him then.
RL: What kind of impression did he leave on you?
AS: I didn’t like him.
RL: Why?
AS: I didn’t trust him.
RL: Why?
AS: I don’t know why. You know, that was more or less a feeling. I just didn’t like him.
RL: Did they invite you to testify at the Eichmann trial?
AS: They invited me to go to Israeland tried get me a position in Israel. I didn’t do either.
RL: Why?
AS: I had enough of Jewish politics. All I wanted to do was work as an architect. They told me, “Andrej, you had been so successful and skillful in Jewish politics there [in Slovakia]; now try to do the same thing in Israel. But I said, “No, I[’ve] had enough.”
RL: You don’t regret it?
AS: No, I don’t regret it. Because [after the war] I was a very successful architect in Cuba and a successful architect in the United States.
Rabbi Parness: Did you make a deposition in the Eichmann trial?
AS: Yes, through the Israeli Embassy here in Atlanta.
RL: Looking back after so many years, do you think that you would have done anything different with the Working Group?
AS: I don’t think so. The beautiful thing with the Working Group was that we discussed everything together before concluding what to do. Sometimes we were successful, sometimes not. But we had a lot of respect for each other.
RL: When you met Rabbi Weissmandl in New York, after the war, did he regret certain things that he did do or did not do?
AS: No, I know for sure that he did not regret anything. He considered, as you say, that certain things happened because of some Higher Guidance, so he had no reason for regrets.
RL: And when liberation came, you went back to Bratislava?
AS: We went back first to Kosice. Because Kosicehad [a] government already. And in Kosice I received permission to open Jewish homes for children coming from Poland. From Kosice I went up into the Tatra mountains and there, with my wife and little boy, Peter, I opened sanatoriums, and took the Jewish children coming from Poland, and gave them UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) clothes, and UNRRA food, just
[to] bring them back again to normal life.
RL: How many children did you have?
AS: A few hundred.
RL: What happened to the children?
AS: We gave the numbers—the names—of the children to the Jewish community in Bratislava, and tried to find their relatives.
RL: Rabbi Parness: What experience did you have with the Slovakian church?
AS: We tried to get the church to help, but the church was no help.
Parness: Did you speak to any of them? Did you speak to the archbishop?
AS: I spoke with President Tiso [who was a priest], but got no help. The church was very negative. No help.
RL: When the Germans came to Hungaryand started to deport 12,000 Jews a day to Auschwitz, what did you, in Slovakia, feel?
AS: We were angry that they couldn’t try the same things what we tried, like working camps and bribes. The Hungarian president, Horthy, was not very cooperative.
Rabbi Parness:: Did you speak to the Jewish community there to try and get them to--
AS: Speaking with outside communities was Gisi Fleischmann’s duty.
RL: Rabbi Weissmandl writes that he did not stop sending letters to Hungary…
AS: Yes. That’s a sad story. Hungary is a sad story.
RL: According to Rabbi Weissmandl, the Working Group was upset because they sent the Hungarian Jews information; they told them what to do--
AS: And they didn’t.
RL: And later on, they were asked, “Did you get letters?” They claimed that they didn’t know what was coming. But they did know what was coming!
AS: They did know.
RL: When you ask survivors who lived in communities outside of Budapest, they say, “We didn’t know! We didn’t know what Auschwitzmeans!” But in Budapestthey did know.
AS: They did know! Kastner was in Bratislava, and he knew! But one of his failures was that instead of trying to help the community, he tried to help mainly his friends and family. Although he did organize a train to Switzerland.
Rabbi Parness: Did the Working Group try and raise money in the Slovakian community to help bribe Wisliceny?
AS: Dr. Neumann and Gisi Fleischmann were in charge of raising money.
Rabbi Parness: Who did they raise the money from?
AS: Everybody in Slovakiawho we knew had money.
Rabbi Parness: Where did you pass the bribe money to Wisliceny?
AS: In his office in the German embassy.
RL: Where did the money come from?
AS: I don’t know.
RL: They just gave you the money to give him.
AS: And Wisliceny all the time said that that money was given to Himmler, that it was never for him. That it was for the Gestapo, for Himmler.
Rabbi Parness: How did you carry the money you gave Wisliceny?
AS: In an envelope.
Rabbi Parness: Weren’t you scared to walk in the street with all that money, with $25,000? Weren’t you scared somebody would steal it?
AS: We did a lot of things [that were] scary. But that was part of it.
Margie: Dad, tell them the story of how Wisliceny tried to get you to go to Hungary with him.
AS: He wanted me to come along so I’d convince Hungarian Jews to negotiate with him, if you know what I mean. He said, “With you, already, I have a working relationship. We can start the same thing in Hungary.”
RL: Bribing, right?
AS: [Steiner nods and smiles.] Wisliceny wanted to take me to Hungary, but my wife made it impossible.
RL: How?
AS: She knew that it was dangerous. Wisliceny wanted to put me into his care and hide me in the trunk. My wife said this was dangerous because if the trunk was opened I would be found and shot. She told me that she would divorce me if I would agree to do that, so I told Wisliceny I couldn’t go with him.
Margie: Dad, tell the end of the story! Tell them that you later found out that Wisliceny’s car trunk was searched!
RL: You mean that if not for your wife, you would have been killed?
AS: Yes.
RL: You mentioned before that Wisliceny made up with you that if the Germans won the war, he would help you, and…
AS: I will help him if the Allies win. I told him that a few times. That’s how I got him to work with me
RL: Did you help him after the Allies won?
AS: No, no. I had no intention of helping him.
RL: So each one knew that the other one was not going to help.
AS: Yeah!
Rabbi Parness: Let me ask you, when did the Working Group know that the Jews were going to be killed in Auschwitz? When did you realize that deportation meant death? How early on?
AS: In ’42.
Rabbi Parness: In ’42 you figured that out.
AS: Yes. The Slovak government called the Jewish leaders, and the Slovak government said that they have an understanding with the Germans to give so-and-so many workers, and they are going to pay to the Germans, for every worker, I think $500, something like that.
RL: Yes.
AS: But the Slovaks told the Jewish leadership.
Rabbi Parness: That they would be killed?
AS: Yes.
Rabbi Parness: But it was common knowledge in Slovakia? All the Slovaks knew about it.
AS: Yes. Yes. Yes.
This interview highlights a painful chapter in Jewish history. Sixty-five years after its demise, Jews worldwide continue to praise the unique Slovakian Working Group, whose devoted members lived for only one goal: the rescue of every Jew, no matter his or her affiliation. May their strivings be a beacon to us all. zM
This article is dedicated to the speedy recovery, refuah shelaimah, of George (Yosef Chaim ben Hetty) Steiner.
The Road to Atlanta
During the Holocaust, the Working Group in Slovakia excelled in its efforts to save every Jew, no matter their affiliation. When Yaakov Fuchs, son of historian Avraham Fuchs, asked me to review a book he had completed in which he analyzed the classic poetic dirge on the destruction of European Jewry written by Rabbi Michoel Dov Weissmandl, zt”l, something he said led me to begin searching for Andrej Steiner, who, at the age of almost 100 lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Thanks to Rabbi Yechiel Kalish of Chicago, I spoke to Rabbi Moshe Boruch Parnes of Atlanta, who, it turned out, had been mesader
kedushin at the wedding of Mr. Steiner’s granddaughter. Not long afterwards, I traveled from New York to meet with Mr. Steiner, his surviving son, George, and daughter-in-law, Margie.
For the interview, Mr. Steiner was brought from the senior citizens’ residence where he lives to his children’ beautiful home. Both Rabbi Parnes, who graciously took time from his busy schedule to accompany me, and I were impressed by the obvious respect and admiration shown to him by the younger Steiners, as well as by their warm remembrances of their mother, who passed on some years ago, and the oldest son, Peter, a very young child during the Working Group years who died at the end of last year.
Andrej Steiner, who is a regal man with snowy hair, looks years younger than his actual age. Before we began the actual interview, in a distinctively European accent and manner, he proclaimed that his life’s two most important achievements were saving Jews and his work as an architect.
The Slovakian Working Group
This underground group, founded in the spring of 1942 in Bratislava (Pressburg), Slovakia’s capital, was headed by Mrs. Gisi Fleischmann, Hy”d, a leading Zionist activist, and included Harav Michoel Ber Weissmandl, zt”l, son-in-law of the Nitra Rav and Rosh Yeshivah Harav Shmuel Dovid Ungar, Hy”d; Dr. Tibor Kovacs, Dr. Oskar Neumann, president of the Zionist Histadrut in Slovakia; and Andrej Steiner, a noted architect who headed the UZ’s Department of Labor and Construction. As time passed, several other dedicated activists joined this initial group.
Setting aside their personal views and religious differences, they worked together to accomplish several goals: save Slovakian Jews from deportation to Poland, help Jewish refugees from Poland make their way through Slovakia to relative safety in Hungary, send money and valuables to deported Slovakian Jews suffering near Lublin, fight the antisemitic Slovakian authorities who not only sympathized with the Nazis but who actually paid them 500 Reichsmarks for every Jew deported out of Slovakia, and alert the world to the tragic truth about what was taking place in Nazi-occupied Europe. They also supported thousands of Jews toiling in the three Slovakian forced labor camps, Sered, Novaky and Vyhne, which were designed by Steiner at the Nazis’ behest. The architect not only convinced the Slovakian authorities that they would benefit economically from Jewish labor, he also worked so closely with those in charge of the camps that he was able to bribe Dr. Julius Pecuk, the official in charge, and other camp officials to grant a number of privileges for the suffering Jewish inmates.
In the course of its rescue efforts, the Working Group became famous for negotiations with the Nazis through SS official Dieter Wisliceny, who they bribed along with many Slovakian government officials. Later on, they also worked to achieve what was known as the Europa Plan, an attempt to bribe senior Nazis to halt the “final solution.” When two Slovakian Jews escaped from Auschwitz, the Working Group helped send their report, called the Auschwitz Protocols, to the free world. This was the first eyewitness confirmation that the Nazis are gasing jews in Auschwitz, a truth the Nazis had worked
assiduously to hide from the world through every means of deception. They also attempted to alert Hungarian Jews to the true meaning of the euphemism
“deportation.” And although they called for the bombing of Auschwitz, or at the very least the railroad lines leading into that extermination camp, both pleas were ignored by the Allies.
Historians continue to debate the value of the Working Group’s efforts, with some contending that the two-year halt in deportations from Slovakiaare attributable to other factors. But no one disputes the tremendous efforts they made to alert the free world to the destruction of European Jewry, and to beg for aid in its rescue. Archives abound with the numerous letters and telegrams they sent from the depths of Nazi-occupied Slovakia pleading for the means to salvage the remnants of European Jewry, and Andrej Steiner is a living witness to the battles they waged for one purpose only: rescue.
The Working Group continued their sacred mission until the summer of 1944, when a general Slovakian uprising against the Nazis resulted in the Nazis liquidating the remaining Slovakian Jewish communities and slave labor camps. Both Harav Weissmandl and Mrs. Fleischmann were deported to Auschwitz with clear instructions in German: RU (return undesirable). Harav Weissmandl, managed to jump off the cattle car that took his wife and five children to the gas chambers. After hiding for six months in a bunker outside of Bratislavaalong with a small group of Jews, including the Stropkiver Rebbe, zt”l, he and the group were transferred to the Swiss border and were saved. Gisi Fleischmann, a relative by marriage of Harav Weissmandl, known for her wisdom
and caring heart, refused many opportunities to flee to safety in order to continue her rescue work. She was deported to Auschwitz with the same RU (return undesirable) instructions and was immediately murdered, Hy”d.
Andrej Steiner escaped with his wife and very young son to the Tatra Mountains, where they hid until liberation. After relocating in Cuba he emigrated to Atlanta, Georgia, where he still lives. A secular Jew who throughout the interview displayed great respect for Rabbi Weissmandl, even though he referred to him in the European manner using only his last name, one of Mr. Steiner’s first statements to me when we began talking was about Harav Weissmandl: “I admired him very much.”
In Andrej Steiner’s Own Words
Ruth Lichtenstein: How did you feel about Rabbi Weissmandl?
Andrej Steiner: If there exists something like a Jewish saint, it must be someone like [Rabbi] Weissmandl. He, in my opinion, was a wonderful guy. I was in contact with him even after he came to the United States. He came from Mount Kisco to New York, where we met, because I really admired him.
RL: Who actually started the Working Group?
AS: Gisi Fleischmann. We used to meet in her office, very informally, and these informal meetings became the Working Group.
RL: Whose idea was it to bribe the Nazis?
AS: [Rabbi] Weissmandl was all the time for bribe. Because, he said, if you look at the history of Slovak Jewry, many of the positive steps in many of the things we could achieve were done because of bribery. Dr. Neumann was against bribery, Gisi Fleischmann was not convinced at first, but Rabbi Weissmandl convinced everyone.
RL: Which Jew actually spoke to the Nazis about accepting bribes?
AS: [Karol] Hochberg, but later we realized he was a traitor. He was a young engineer working in the department in charge of preparing statistics for Jewish deportation who got close to Wisliceny, so we asked him to offer the bribe. Later he became very powerful.
RL: Who was Dr. Abeles?
AS: Ernst Abeles was an outside member of our group. When he was saved from being deported thanks to a bribe, it gave [Rabbi] Weissmandl the idea that if it could work for one person it could work for many.
RL: How was the $50,000 bribe demanded by Wisliceny paid?
AS: In two $25,000 installments.
RL: Where did the first installment come from?
AS: Shlomo Stern and his wife, of the Orthodox community. He had the money, in American dollars, buried. During the night they unearthed it and stood the whole night washing and ironing the bills so they shouldn’t smell. So they should look like they had come directly from overseas.
Rabbi Parness: Did you iron it also?
AS: No. I didn’t. It was Sam Stern and his wife.
RP: Where did the Working Group get the remaining $25,000?
AS: Gisi made contact with activists in Hungary and tried to get the money from them. She actually traveled to Hungary, but was not successful. Then
she made contact with Switzerland too.
RL: With whom?
AS: Saly Mayer (The Swiss representative of the American Joint)
RL: And what did Saly Mayer answer?
AS: I think Saly Mayer was against it, because he said American law forbids bribery.
RL: According to Rav Weissmandl’s book, Nathan Schwalb, a Zionist representative from Switzerland, wrote back in Hebrew, “Rak badam tikneh —yehiyeh lanu haaretz.” It’s a very famous line in Hebrew that translates into, “you have to understand that if we Jews are not going to pay with blood, later we are not going to have any right to demand our own country.” Do you remember that?
AS: Yes. That is true.
RL: Who told this to you?
AS: [Rabbi] Weissmandl.
RL: Did you see any letters that came from Switzerlandthat said “We do not believe in bribery”?
AS: No, but [Rabbi] Weissmandl had one. He said that he had a letter.
RL: Do you know where such a letter exists?
AS: I don’t remember.
RL: Rabbi Weissmandl writes that after the war he searched extensive archives and discovered that this letter was missing. Those in charge said that the letter never existed. Scholars now claim that such a letter was never sent, that it was Weissmandl’s imagination. What do you think?
AS: Anything that [Rabbi] Weissmandl said, I considered as true. If he said that he had a letter, I believe yes, he had the letter. I didn’t see the letter, but I believed that he had a letter.
RL: What did Gisi say about Switzerland?
AS: Gisi was upset about them.
RL: Why?
AS: Because [s]he considered that Switzerland had the only possibility to get money. And Switzerland’s negative attitude was hurting her. Because that was one of her main, main connections.
RL: From which group did she expect to get this bribe money?
AS: Both the Orthodox and the Zionists. She did go to both, and had meetings with both.
RL: And she did not get the money?
AS: She did not get the money.
RL: So, the second installment of $25,000 did not materialize and after a short break in deportations, another one left after Rosh Hashanah. In his book Rabbi Weissmandl says that when this happened, he went to the post office and sent telegrams to Hungaryin his father-in-law’s name — he had received permission to do so to help Jewish rescue. The telegram called Orthodox leaders in Hungary to“court,” to a Jewish court case that would be held on the fast approaching Day of Judgment, Yom Kippur, and demanding them to answer why they failed to send the money that could have saved so many Jewish lives.
AS: Oh, I didn’t know that.
RL: According to scholars there were two more deportations in 1942, after Yom Kippur. Do you remember something like that?
AS: I somehow remember, somehow, something like that happened.
RL: The question is, could those deportations have taken place because of the pressure of the Slovakians?
AS: At the time it happened, that was the story. That the pressure was from the Slovaks, and not from the Germans.
RL: But after the bribery the deportations stopped for two years?
AS: Two years!
RL: Rabbi Weissmandl was arrested when the currier smuggling money and valuables into Polandto help Slovakian deportees was captured. While in jail, Rabbi Weissmandl devised the Europa Plan. Is that correct?
AS: Yes. It was [Rabbi] Weissmanl’s plan to give such big bribes that the Germans would halt their destruction of Europe’s remaining Jews. I took the Europa Plan to Wisliceny.
RL: What was his answer?
AS: He was willing to present it to Himmler. He was confident that through Himmler the Europa Plan could be accomplished.
RL: What actually happened?
AS: We couldn’t get Jews outside of Nazi-occupied Europe to send us what we needed. I would say it was one of our group’s biggest failures. Because the Europa Plan was for the Jews a very good plan.
RL: Did Wisliceny say that the Europa Plan failed because of the lack of money?
AS: Yes. Yes. He had the same feeling, that we didn’t live up to our promises, so they cannot live up to their promises. And basically, I really mean, if in this very critical position, the beginning of Europa Plan, we would have had the $100,000, maybe… maybe we could have been helpful in other countries too.
RL: When Rabbi Weissmandl devised the Europa Plan, did you accept it?
AS: I immediately accepted it. I believed in it, too.
RL: Do you believe that the bribe stopped the deportation?
AS: I believe that the working camps which I organized in Sered, Novaky, and Vyhne kept the thousands who worked there safe from beingdeported. So it wasn’t only the bribery. I believe that the work camps and the bribe stopped deportations for those two years.
RL: What happened to the Working Group at the end of the summer in 1944 when a group of Slovakians organized an armed uprising?
AS: The Nazis crushed the revolt and sent in Alois Brunner, an SS officer to liquidate any remaining Jews. So I went with my family into the mountains, where I spent six months.
RL: Where did Gisi and Rabbi Weissmandl go?
AS: [Rabbi] Weissmandl, Gisi, and Dr. Kovacs stayed in Bratislava and were captured by Brunner.
RL: What did you hear about them?
AS: Gisi was sent to Auschwitz. Dr. Kovacs committed suicide in Bratislava. Weissmandl jumped from a train, alone, not with his family, and then he went into hiding in a bunker.
RL: He was rescued by Dr. Rudolf Kastner. Did you ever meet him?
AS: Dr. Kastner came to Bratislava twice. I met him then.
RL: What kind of impression did he leave on you?
AS: I didn’t like him.
RL: Why?
AS: I didn’t trust him.
RL: Why?
AS: I don’t know why. You know, that was more or less a feeling. I just didn’t like him.
RL: Did they invite you to testify at the Eichmann trial?
AS: They invited me to go to Israeland tried get me a position in Israel. I didn’t do either.
RL: Why?
AS: I had enough of Jewish politics. All I wanted to do was work as an architect. They told me, “Andrej, you had been so successful and skillful in Jewish politics there [in Slovakia]; now try to do the same thing in Israel. But I said, “No, I[’ve] had enough.”
RL: You don’t regret it?
AS: No, I don’t regret it. Because [after the war] I was a very successful architect in Cuba and a successful architect in the United States.
Rabbi Parness: Did you make a deposition in the Eichmann trial?
AS: Yes, through the Israeli Embassy here in Atlanta.
RL: Looking back after so many years, do you think that you would have done anything different with the Working Group?
AS: I don’t think so. The beautiful thing with the Working Group was that we discussed everything together before concluding what to do. Sometimes we were successful, sometimes not. But we had a lot of respect for each other.
RL: When you met Rabbi Weissmandl in New York, after the war, did he regret certain things that he did do or did not do?
AS: No, I know for sure that he did not regret anything. He considered, as you say, that certain things happened because of some Higher Guidance, so he had no reason for regrets.
RL: And when liberation came, you went back to Bratislava?
AS: We went back first to Kosice. Because Kosicehad [a] government already. And in Kosice I received permission to open Jewish homes for children coming from Poland. From Kosice I went up into the Tatra mountains and there, with my wife and little boy, Peter, I opened sanatoriums, and took the Jewish children coming from Poland, and gave them UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) clothes, and UNRRA food, just
[to] bring them back again to normal life.
RL: How many children did you have?
AS: A few hundred.
RL: What happened to the children?
AS: We gave the numbers—the names—of the children to the Jewish community in Bratislava, and tried to find their relatives.
RL: Rabbi Parness: What experience did you have with the Slovakian church?
AS: We tried to get the church to help, but the church was no help.
Parness: Did you speak to any of them? Did you speak to the archbishop?
AS: I spoke with President Tiso [who was a priest], but got no help. The church was very negative. No help.
RL: When the Germans came to Hungaryand started to deport 12,000 Jews a day to Auschwitz, what did you, in Slovakia, feel?
AS: We were angry that they couldn’t try the same things what we tried, like working camps and bribes. The Hungarian president, Horthy, was not very cooperative.
Rabbi Parness:: Did you speak to the Jewish community there to try and get them to--
AS: Speaking with outside communities was Gisi Fleischmann’s duty.
RL: Rabbi Weissmandl writes that he did not stop sending letters to Hungary…
AS: Yes. That’s a sad story. Hungary is a sad story.
RL: According to Rabbi Weissmandl, the Working Group was upset because they sent the Hungarian Jews information; they told them what to do--
AS: And they didn’t.
RL: And later on, they were asked, “Did you get letters?” They claimed that they didn’t know what was coming. But they did know what was coming!
AS: They did know.
RL: When you ask survivors who lived in communities outside of Budapest, they say, “We didn’t know! We didn’t know what Auschwitzmeans!” But in Budapestthey did know.
AS: They did know! Kastner was in Bratislava, and he knew! But one of his failures was that instead of trying to help the community, he tried to help mainly his friends and family. Although he did organize a train to Switzerland.
Rabbi Parness: Did the Working Group try and raise money in the Slovakian community to help bribe Wisliceny?
AS: Dr. Neumann and Gisi Fleischmann were in charge of raising money.
Rabbi Parness: Who did they raise the money from?
AS: Everybody in Slovakiawho we knew had money.
Rabbi Parness: Where did you pass the bribe money to Wisliceny?
AS: In his office in the German embassy.
RL: Where did the money come from?
AS: I don’t know.
RL: They just gave you the money to give him.
AS: And Wisliceny all the time said that that money was given to Himmler, that it was never for him. That it was for the Gestapo, for Himmler.
Rabbi Parness: How did you carry the money you gave Wisliceny?
AS: In an envelope.
Rabbi Parness: Weren’t you scared to walk in the street with all that money, with $25,000? Weren’t you scared somebody would steal it?
AS: We did a lot of things [that were] scary. But that was part of it.
Margie: Dad, tell them the story of how Wisliceny tried to get you to go to Hungary with him.
AS: He wanted me to come along so I’d convince Hungarian Jews to negotiate with him, if you know what I mean. He said, “With you, already, I have a working relationship. We can start the same thing in Hungary.”
RL: Bribing, right?
AS: [Steiner nods and smiles.] Wisliceny wanted to take me to Hungary, but my wife made it impossible.
RL: How?
AS: She knew that it was dangerous. Wisliceny wanted to put me into his care and hide me in the trunk. My wife said this was dangerous because if the trunk was opened I would be found and shot. She told me that she would divorce me if I would agree to do that, so I told Wisliceny I couldn’t go with him.
Margie: Dad, tell the end of the story! Tell them that you later found out that Wisliceny’s car trunk was searched!
RL: You mean that if not for your wife, you would have been killed?
AS: Yes.
RL: You mentioned before that Wisliceny made up with you that if the Germans won the war, he would help you, and…
AS: I will help him if the Allies win. I told him that a few times. That’s how I got him to work with me
RL: Did you help him after the Allies won?
AS: No, no. I had no intention of helping him.
RL: So each one knew that the other one was not going to help.
AS: Yeah!
Rabbi Parness: Let me ask you, when did the Working Group know that the Jews were going to be killed in Auschwitz? When did you realize that deportation meant death? How early on?
AS: In ’42.
Rabbi Parness: In ’42 you figured that out.
AS: Yes. The Slovak government called the Jewish leaders, and the Slovak government said that they have an understanding with the Germans to give so-and-so many workers, and they are going to pay to the Germans, for every worker, I think $500, something like that.
RL: Yes.
AS: But the Slovaks told the Jewish leadership.
Rabbi Parness: That they would be killed?
AS: Yes.
Rabbi Parness: But it was common knowledge in Slovakia? All the Slovaks knew about it.
AS: Yes. Yes. Yes.
This interview highlights a painful chapter in Jewish history. Sixty-five years after its demise, Jews worldwide continue to praise the unique Slovakian Working Group, whose devoted members lived for only one goal: the rescue of every Jew, no matter his or her affiliation. May their strivings be a beacon to us all. zM
This article is dedicated to the speedy recovery, refuah shelaimah, of George (Yosef Chaim ben Hetty) Steiner.