Czechoslovakian leader Gisi Fleischmann (1894-1944) worked tirelessly to rescue her fellow Jews during the Nazi Holocaust, organizing networks which allowed many to escape to safety.

Gisi Fleischmann was born in 1894 into an Orthodox Jewish family in Bratislava, Slovakia. As a young woman she became a Zionist. She developed rapidly as a Zionist leader and soon became president of the Bratislava branch of WIZO, the Women's International Zionist Organization. In this post she showed ability as an organizer and public speaker, as well as diplomatic skill. About the time of her introduction to Zionism, she married the merchant Josef Fleischmann. The Fleischmanns had two daughters.

Soon after Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 Jewish refugees began to arrive in the Bratislava area. Many of these refugees hoped to go on to the British-held Palestine Mandate (now Israel), but hundreds were stranded in Slovakia. As a member of the...