by Connie C. Triggiano
The Philippines’ greatest shining moment slithered through the darkest hours of World War II when the country rose to the moral challenge of opening its doors to thousands of Jews escaping from Holocaust chambers of Nazi Germany.
This little-known rescue of the Jews in the lead-up to the Holocaust in 1939 adds a profound touch to this year’s celebration in October of the Filipino history month.
The rest of the world rebuffed the Jews’ pleas for admission to various countries as thousands of them, scared and desperate, waited on board ships (there were 3 of them) along the raging waters of the Mediterranean. Not even the United States, the primary player that ended Hitler’s vicious anti-Semitism and obsession to install a supreme Aryan race, stepped up to Jews’ desperate search for relief.
The Jews found such haven in the Philippines, then a US-governed Commonwealth nation under President Manuel L. Quezon. Despite a strong internal opposition from politicians, Quezon advocated with the US State Department for the issuance of visas that eventualy benefited over 1,200 Jewish refugees. The US approved settling 10,000 Jews in the Philippines over a 10 year period but the plan was scuttled when Japanese forces invaded the country at the outbreak of the war in the Pacific.
Quezon planned on settling the refugees in Mindanao, responding to the mission of the Evian Conference convened by President Franklin Roosevelt as a solution to the Jewish refugee problem. The program envisioned the establishment of agricultural settlements in underdeveloped regions like the Philippines. US experts on agricultural settlement arrived in the Philippines in 1939 to scout for suitable lands.
While Quezon’s “Mindanao” program was the one seriously considered in Asia for implementation, the plan however did not sit well with some Filipinos who felt that Philippine lands should only be for Filipinos. Moreover, it was met with political scorn by Quezon’s chief adversary, Emilio Aguinaldo who claimed that the Jewish people, were “dangerous” and “selfishly materialistic.”
The Jewish Rescue
Rather than acquiesce to internal political opposition, Quezon decided to offer his private home lot in Marikina where he built the Marikina Hall to house the fleeing Jews from Nazi genocide. The site was dedicated on April 23, 1940, attended by the survivors and some Jewish residents in the Philippines led by businessmen Alex and Philip Frieden, brothers who established the Philippine Jewish Refugee Committee that advocated for and helped the government run the rescue mission.
The Jewish rescue came following the tragedy that met over 900 Jews that left Germany in 1939 aboard M.S. St. Louis en route to Cuba. Cuba refused to allow the ship to land; it then sought the United States and Canada which also refused to accept the refugees. The ship had to turn back to Europe. Great Britain, Belgium, France and the Netherlands accepted a few of the refugees but the rest were trapped when Gemany conquered Western Europe. They eventually perished in the Holocaust.
Former Ambassador Effie Ben Matityau of Israel praised the Philippines for opening its doors to Jewish refugees, a complete opposite of the “biggest moral collapse,” he said, “of those who call themselves enlightened nations.” He was referring to the US and other countries that did not admit into their shores M.S. St Louis, the ship ferrying the Jews looking for sanctuary.
President Quezon’s unrelenting determination to secure visas from the US State Department allowed the entry to the Philippines of over 1,200 Jewish refugees who joined the small community of American Jews who stayed behind in the country following the Philippine-American war of 1899.
Quezon and his “Open Doors” policy that served the rescue mission were honored in 2009 by the State of Israel on the Open Doors monument in Rishon LeZion. Rishon LeZion, one of Israel’s oldest towns, is host to museums showcasing Israeli life in earlier times.
Israel also celebrates “Righteous Among the Nations,” an honorific used by the State of Israel to “describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews.” Press accounts later on commented that Quezon was able to save a few more Jewish lives than the celebrated Oskar Schindler from the movie “Schindler’s List.”
Quezon’s Game
This little known fact about the Philippines’ benevolent role in saving Jewish refugees from the Holocaust is now captured in film called “Quezon’s Game.” It was produced by British filmmaker Matthew Rosen who immigrated to the Philippines in 1980 with his Filipina wife. Rosen’s curiosity was triggered by the fact that Filipinos could sing “Hava Nagila” but majority is unaware of its origin.
Rosen first scoured Manila’s synagogue and museum, angling for any bits of information about the Jewish folk song. It led to his discovering the practically unknown episode of President Quezon and the rescued European Jews in 1939. Owing to lack of historical data, Rosen relied on academic dissertations by American scholars for the writing of the screenplay. He also met and interviewed Jewish descendents of Holocaust survivors in the Philippines who provided stories and faded photographs of their forebears’ escape from Hitler’s death camps.
The movie “Quezon’s Game” now serves as a testament to the courage and determination of the Filipino people and their president to do the right thing and extend a helping hand when it was sorely needed in the face of history’s most damning and cruel episode.
Connie Triggiano is the Board Secretary of Circa Pintig, a community theater organization of Filipinos in Chicago. Connie graduated BA in English from the University of San Francisco (California), attended UST Graduate School’s Asian Institute for the Development of Advertising (MS in Advertising), and MS Communications coursework at PUP in the Philippines where she also taught college freshmen. Presently, Connie tutors foreign students to pass IELTS, TOEFL, Celpic, and Pearson Test of English Academic for admission to universities in the US and other countries. She also trains candidates for US citizenship to pass English and naturalization tests in US history, civics, and government.
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