Background
She was born in 1894 in Slovakia.
She was born in 1894 in Slovakia.
When the Jewish Center, the Slovak Jewish council, was established in 1940, she became the head of its emigration department. At the time of the deportations from Slovakia.
During the period of the deportations, the Working Group tried to end the flow of transports to the east. They attempted to convince members of the Slovak government, Slovak church leaders, and the Vatican to intervene on behalf of the Jews. They succeeded in establishing three work camps in Slovakia, where most of the inmates were safe-guarded from deportation. They also made contact with Dieter Wisliceny, Adolf Eichmann’s reprsentative in Slovakia, and began negotiations with him for the cessation of the deportations.
Fleischmann played a central role in all these activities, especially in the negotiations. Soon after the Working Group paid Wisliceny the required sum (50,000 dollars), the deportations ended. She, along with Rabbi Michael Dov Weismandel, and the other leaders of the Working Group, believed that the payment had led to the end of the deportations. They embarked on expanded negotiations with Wisliceny to end the deportations of Jews from throughout Nazi-dominated Europe to Poland. These discussions came to be known as the Europa Plan.
She was arrested several times for her other rescue activities. The most serious charge against her was that she had given a bribe to the wife of a chairman of a government office, Dr. Koso, in order to stop the deportations. Although imprisoned, she was released through Wisliceny’s intervention.
During the suppression of the Slovak National Uprising in 1944, a Gestapo officer burst into her office and arrested her. Alois Brunner, who was responsible for the renewed deportations, told her that if she would divulge the whereabouts of Jews in hiding she would be released. Fleischmann refused. She was sent to Auschwitz, with the express order that she be killed, and she was gassed on arrival.