I 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2740 
To posthumously award a Congressional Gold Medal to Rabbi Michoel Ber 
Weissmandl in recognition of his acts of valor during World War II. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 25, 2017 
Ms. VELA´ZQUEZ (for herself and Mr. MAST) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services 
A BILL 
To posthumously award a Congressional Gold Medal to Rabbi 
Michoel Ber Weissmandl in recognition of his acts of 
valor during World War II. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Rabbi Michoel Ber 
Weissmandl Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2017’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Rabbi Michoel Ber Weissmandl was born in 
Hungary on October 25, 1903, later moving to Slo-
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vakia to study under Rabbi Shumel Dvoid Ungar in 
Nitra. 
(2) During his time in Nitra, he quickly became 
a senior figure within the local Jewish community 
and Yeshiva. 
(3) Weissmandl was responsible for some of the 
daring efforts to save the Jewish people of Slovakia 
from the Holocaust, which include the establishment 
of a ‘‘Working Group’’, an underground organization 
that raised funds to negotiate ransom with German 
and Slovakian officials in order to delay mass depor-
tations. 
(4) During the Nazi regime, Weissmandl used 
his contacts from England to obtain visas, becoming 
one of the first to actively protect people of Jewish 
ancestry in Europe. 
(5) Weissmandl also wrote telegrams to gen-
erate awareness of the Jewish people’s plight and 
encouraged other strategic approaches to stop the 
Holocaust, including the bombing of railroad tunnels 
to prevent the transportation of persons to con-
centration camps. 
(6) Weissmandl established a Working Group— 
a wide variety of people from different political and 
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ideological spectrums—whose common goal was to 
save people from the ‘‘Final Solution’’. 
(7) The Working Group was one of the first to 
document in writing the accounts of Auschwitz 
Escapees in a document widely referred to as the 
‘‘Auschwitz Protocols’’. 
(8) Weissmandl himself later translated the ini-
tial documentation from German to Hebrew and in-
cluded a widely known addendum that pleaded for 
action. 
(9) Weissmandl wrote the first known appeal 
for the use of Allied air resources to disrupt the Hol-
ocaust. 
(10) In 1942 when Slovakia started deportation 
for ‘‘resettlement’’, Rabbi Weissmandl was the first 
to inform the Working Group that people were being 
murdered and not sent to work as originally claimed. 
(11) Rabbi Weissmandl also played an instru-
mental role in Solomon Schoenfeld Kindertransport 
rescue, helping save hundreds of lives. 
(12) Rabbi Weissmandl came to America and in 
1945 immediately got to work to establish a home 
and Yeshiva for Holocaust survivors. The Yeshiva of 
Nitra he established in Mount Kisco, New York, was 
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the first Yeshiva campus in America and became 
and example that other institutions followed. 
(13) Rabbi Weissmandl has significantly influ-
enced the flourishing communities of Talmudic 
scholars in Brooklyn, New York, and generally 
across the United States. 
SEC. 3. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL. 
(a) PRESENTATION AUTHORIZED.—The Speaker of 
the House of Representatives and the President pro tem-
pore of the Senate shall make appropriate arrangements 
for the presentation, on behalf of Congress, of a gold 
medal of appropriate design, to Rabbi Michoel Ber 
Weissmandl in recognition of his acts of valor during 
World War II. 
(b) PARTICIPATION BY WEISSMANDL COMMITTEE.— 
For the purpose of the presentation referred to in sub-
section (a), the Speaker and President pro tempore shall 
ensure that the Weissmandl Committee may accept the 
medal on behalf of Michoel Ber Weissmandl. 
(c) DESIGN AND STRIKING.—For the purpose of the 
presentation referred to in subsection (a), the Secretary 
of the Treasury (hereinafter in this Act referred to as the 
‘‘Secretary’’) shall strike a gold medal with suitable em-
blems, devices, and inscriptions to be determined by the 
Secretary. 
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(d) TRANSFER OF MEDAL AFTER PRESENTATION.— 
Following the presentation of the gold medal in honor of 
Michoel Ber Weissmandl under subsection (a), the gold 
medal shall be given to Samuel Dovid Weissmandl or, 
should he not be present, to Rabbi Menachem Meir 
Weissmandl. 
SEC. 4. DUPLICATE MEDALS. 
Under such regulations as the Secretary may pre-
scribe, the Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in 
bronze of the gold medal struck pursuant to section 2 at 
a price sufficient to cover the cost of the bronze medals 
(including labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, and 
overhead expenses) and the cost of the gold medal. 
SEC. 5. NATIONAL MEDAL. 
(a) NATIONAL MEDAL.—The gold medal struck 
under this Act is a national medals for purposes of chapter 
51 of title 31, United States Code. 
(b) NUMISMATIC ITEMS.—For purposes of sections 
5134 and 5136 of title 31, United States Code, all medals 
struck under this Act shall be considered to be numismatic 
items. 
Æ 
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