Hope all is well.
Today, I would like to delve on a part of history that is not usually taught in schools most especially here in the Philippines. I've never heard this story before in our history classes that the Philippines has been part of one of the most horrible events that happened to humanity, the Holocaust.
Most of us may have watched the movie Schindler's List which shows the life of Oscar Schindler, a German industrialist and a member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories in occupied Poland and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
Oscar Schindler
However, did you know that a country in Asia has also been part of rescuing almost the same number of Jews? This was the humanitarian act of one of Philippines' presidents and how the Filipino people has
accepted, with open arms, the persecuted Jews.
Manuel L. Quezon became the second president of the Philippines from 1935 to 1941 under the Nacionalista Party. In 1934, under the admittance of President Manuel L. Quezon and U.S. High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt, Jewish refugees escaping Nazi persecution were able to find sanctuary in the Philippines before Filipinos and Jews alike experienced the brunt of the Second World War. President Quezon pushed back against critics of his open-door immigration policy by issuing Proclamation No. 173 on August 21, 1937. He called on all Filipinos to welcome the refugees and instructed the government to assist them. This later became the basis of President Quezon’s issuance of Commonwealth Act 613, later the Philippine Immigration Act of 1940. Many Filipinos were deeply concerned by the threat the Nazi regime posed to European Jewry during the 1930s. On November 17, 1938, hundreds of Filipinos held a rally in Manila to express their moral outrage at the Nazi persecution of German and Austrian Jews, and to denounce the Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) pogrom of November 9/10, 1938.
Manuel L. Quezon
In 2009, a monument honoring the Philippines was erected at the Holocaust Memorial Park in the Israeli city of Rishon Lezion. The monument, shaped like three open doors, thanks the Filipino people and its president for taking in Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.
Duterte ends Israel trip with visit to monument honoring PHL open door policy to Jews
On January 27th 2020, in observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, twin events were organized by the Philippine Mission to the United Nations in New York and the Philippine Embassy in Israel at the United Nations headquarters in New York and Balai Quezon in Tel-Aviv, respectively. “Safe Haven: Jewish Refugees in the Philippines” featured the viewing of “The Last Manila-ners”, “Quezon’s Game”, and “An Open Door: Jewish Rescue in the Philippines”, as well as personal testimonies from Holocaust survivors who found refuge in the Philippines.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr., in his keynote address delivered in New York, highlighted the importance of this legacy. He said, “In this time of rising anti-Semitism, this story of my country’s Open Doors Policy shows how plain decency can triumph over raging prejudice — which seems so irresistible when all we have to counter it is the soft quality of caring. It is a great moral victory that recognizes every life saved as immeasurably valuable for containing the infinite possibilities of a single human life.”
Among the personal testimonies heard during the event were those of Holocaust survivors Ralph Preiss and Max Weissler. They are “Manila-ners” – 1,300 European Jews who fled to Manila and have come to consider the Philippines their second home. “The Last Manila-ners,” one of the documentary films shown in the event, shows the personal accounts and stories of the last living Jewish refugees who sought refuge in Manila.
This makes me proud to be a Filipino though I may not have a direct part of that amazing journey of saving hundreds of lives. In our times where people are mostly judged by the color of their skin, race, language or even educational background there is something that makes us Filipinos apart from the rest of the world.
I found this video in Youtube which documents this story (credits to the owner):
References:
https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/ph
https://www.timesofisrael.com/little-known-philippines-wwii-rescue-of-jews-was-capped-by-us-interference/
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/666766/duterte-ends-israel-trip-with-visit-to-monument-honoring-phl-open-door-policy-to-jews/story/
https://www.cnn.com/2015/02/02/world/asia/philippines-jews-wwii/index.html
https://www.thejc.com/culture/film/filipino-president-who-saved-jews-in-the-shoah-1.496219
https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/ph
https://www.timesofisrael.com/little-known-philippines-wwii-rescue-of-jews-was-capped-by-us-interference/
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/666766/duterte-ends-israel-trip-with-visit-to-monument-honoring-phl-open-door-policy-to-jews/story/
https://www.cnn.com/2015/02/02/world/asia/philippines-jews-wwii/index.html
https://www.thejc.com/culture/film/filipino-president-who-saved-jews-in-the-shoah-1.496219
https://www.unhcr.org/ph/17553-jewish-refugees.html
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-night-of-broken-glass
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_L._Quezon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler
