MANILANERS: HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS in QUEZON'S LIST
J. Alvin Inacay Bautista
August 06, 2009
With the forthcoming birth anniversary of Philippine President Manuel Luis Quezon on the 19th of August, his countrymen will mark this day as a day of remembrance for his role in instituting a National Language. And yet hardly a handful are even aware that he also shares the distinction as being among the Righteous Gentiles , honored by the Jewish people. He shares that distinction with others more prominently potrayed in cinema or history books as German industrtialist Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson in the Steven Spielberg opus). and humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg. (Richard Chamberlain in a made for television movie) , or canonized Saint Maximillian Kolbe (his story often seen on EWTN).
Like Catholics Schindler and Kolbe, this fiery mestizo educated by the Dominicans of Letran College, the oldest boys´ school in the Philippines, was largely responsible for saving the lives of Jews in that infamous chapter now known as the era of the Holocaust during World War II. Unlike Schindler, Kolbe and Wallenberg, Manuel Luis Quezon was Head of State of the what was otherwise a sovereign state, the fledgling Commonwealth of the Philippines, preparing for its independence from its benevolent colonial master the United States of America.
In support of the Jewish Relief Committee headed by four intrepid Jewish businessmen brothers, the Freiders, the inspiring saga of rescue from certain death in the Nazi concentration camps (Auszchwitz, Buchenwald, Maidanek and Theresiendstadt, among others), reads almost like another Steven Spielberg cinematic gem.
Most will lament how the story has hardly been mentioned, if at all, in the history books. Just recently, an impressive monument was erected in the Rishon Le Zion Park in Israel commemorating the Righteous humanitarian act of Manuel Luis Quezon and the Filipino people. Buried within headlines of the A1H1 Virus, the celebration caps almost four years of an inspiring tale unraveled and started by the publication of a book by a MANILANER, Frank Ephraim. The term refers to a Manila Jewish refugee, whose circuitous route to the Philippine capital of Manila would take some from the soon to emerge ghettoes of Eastern Europe, the enclaves of once fiercely loyal and nationalistic Jewish cultural communities in Germany and Austria and even from squalid Shanghai, the last neutral avenue of escape from Nazi persecution.
Some one thousand two hundred Jewish refugees were destined to disembark in the Port of Manila from 1939 to 1941 , to join a small community of exiles whose leaders were the hardworking Freider brothers. Their business was in cigar making, marketed overseas under the brand name Toro by a company called Helena Cigar Company. On decrepit crafts and ocean bound liners, these hapless yet fortunate Jews will escape the dreaded fate of many of their family members. This was dramatized in a Hollywood film, Voyage of the Damned, directed by Stuart Rosenberg with an all star cast led by Faye Dunaway and Oskar Werner. It depicted Hamburg Jews aboard an ill fated cruise liner SS St. Louis which would be turned away from ports in the Western Hemisphere to be returned to their doom in Nazi occupied Europe,
In Manila, amidst all the rumours and apprehension, the intrepid band of brothers, the Freiders, harnessed the resources of a small sympathetic Jewish congregation in Manila. They pursued efforts in securing Philippine visas from Manuel Luis Quezon and the helpful US High Commissioner Paul Mcnutt. To even rationalize the highly controversial repatriation to the Philippines, a list of qualified Jews was made identifying specific professions and craftsman skills. Soon, they would carry with pride their being Manilaners, nurtured by a caring Jewish safe haven and would soon thrive even in worship at a Manila synagogue. This was called Temple Emil along Taft. Avenue, Manila´s main thoroughfare outside of the Walled City of Intramuros. This Jewish house of worship was named after its most prominent benefactor with a hall named after the wealthy Bacharachs. An incredible saga of humanitarian sanctuary provided by visionary Manuel Quezon is made even more noteworthy with the fact that the statesman had also donated personal real estate property in Marikina, a suburb outside Manila for settlement and cultivation. Added to this, Quezon put forward an ambitious MINDANAO PLAN for massive relocation of the displaced Jews. No other undertaking by the Allied Powers was made despite various intelligence reports and smuggled documented accounts from the Nazi concentration camps disguised as labor resettlement sites.
In what would be a futile race against time and human apathy, the proposed MINDANAO PLAN would have provided sanctuary for the persecuted tribes of Israel. With a yearly quota of 10,000 Jewish refugees, the largely unpopulated southern Philippine Island of Mindanao would have been a New Jerusalem, had not the politicians griped about these dangerous "Communists" and "Christ killers". This prevailing and despicable streak of Anti Semitism would eventually slam the doors for refuge for the Jews into the ravenous Death Squads of Himmler and Eichmann, literally fanning the flames of the death chambers. Deemed too overly ambitious, the Mindanao Plan had its counterparts in other refuges, as in Puerto Rico, Costa Rica and in Madagascar. But had Quezon prevailed, for all the so called schemes that he was also accused of (typical of a Filipino sociocultural flaw and American isolationist leanings), hundreds, if not thousands, would have been saved from the cattle cars bearing fodder for Auschwitz and Treblinka.
The resurgent Israeli nation does not have short memories and instead, what was only to have been a simple marker, a seven meter high work of art, dubbed Open Doors, designed by a prominent Filipino artist, was instead unveiled in Rishon Le Zion, the fourth largest city in Israel. MANILANERS who survived the Holocaust and the Japanese occupation were present in the solemn ceremonies, and were grateful for their deliverance largely due to a prized Philippine visa by an unheralded and even obscure Asian leader, Manuel Luis Quezon. Honored as a Righteous Gentile, he joins a stellar elite of humanitarians, who deserve to be recognized for daring to stand against an evil supremacist horde whose progeny remains to this day. Think about a revisionist cabal which denies that the Holocaust even happened and derides it as a hoax. Six million Jews slaughtered in an unprecedented Final Solution crafted by an obsessive yet highly efficient SS led combine should be turning in their mass graves and gas chambered tombs. Steven Spielberg shot his epic Schindler´s List in a grainy black and white canvas. And if one is reminded about a little girl in red (scarlet cloaked amidst the sea of somber black and gray) and her unfortunate fate in that film , I must say no one would even dare humor these Holocaust hoax spin doctors.
Every Filipino should be proud of Manuel Luis Quezon, his courage and his humanitarian spirit which deserve mention. Having opened doors for the persecuted Jews to escape from certain extermination, a grateful nation like Israel values the Philippines own Herr Oskar Schindler and honors the heroes with their rightful place among the Righteous.
We should not also forget about the feisty Brawler from Baler. If an award winning film about the siege of the last Spanish contingent in the Philippine struggle for Independence was made and set in that historic town, would anyone care to do one for a Filipino honored as a Righteous Gentile? Consider the moving line from Schindler´s List, which a grateful legion saved from extinction carved on a ring they gave their savior. "Whover saves one life, saves the whole world entire."
Manuel Luis Quezon had helped save over a thousand lives, not of his own countrymen, and not even of his same faith. As a Filipino and Righteous Gentile , he now also belongs to the world.
Like Catholics Schindler and Kolbe, this fiery mestizo educated by the Dominicans of Letran College, the oldest boys´ school in the Philippines, was largely responsible for saving the lives of Jews in that infamous chapter now known as the era of the Holocaust during World War II. Unlike Schindler, Kolbe and Wallenberg, Manuel Luis Quezon was Head of State of the what was otherwise a sovereign state, the fledgling Commonwealth of the Philippines, preparing for its independence from its benevolent colonial master the United States of America.
In support of the Jewish Relief Committee headed by four intrepid Jewish businessmen brothers, the Freiders, the inspiring saga of rescue from certain death in the Nazi concentration camps (Auszchwitz, Buchenwald, Maidanek and Theresiendstadt, among others), reads almost like another Steven Spielberg cinematic gem.
Most will lament how the story has hardly been mentioned, if at all, in the history books. Just recently, an impressive monument was erected in the Rishon Le Zion Park in Israel commemorating the Righteous humanitarian act of Manuel Luis Quezon and the Filipino people. Buried within headlines of the A1H1 Virus, the celebration caps almost four years of an inspiring tale unraveled and started by the publication of a book by a MANILANER, Frank Ephraim. The term refers to a Manila Jewish refugee, whose circuitous route to the Philippine capital of Manila would take some from the soon to emerge ghettoes of Eastern Europe, the enclaves of once fiercely loyal and nationalistic Jewish cultural communities in Germany and Austria and even from squalid Shanghai, the last neutral avenue of escape from Nazi persecution.
Some one thousand two hundred Jewish refugees were destined to disembark in the Port of Manila from 1939 to 1941 , to join a small community of exiles whose leaders were the hardworking Freider brothers. Their business was in cigar making, marketed overseas under the brand name Toro by a company called Helena Cigar Company. On decrepit crafts and ocean bound liners, these hapless yet fortunate Jews will escape the dreaded fate of many of their family members. This was dramatized in a Hollywood film, Voyage of the Damned, directed by Stuart Rosenberg with an all star cast led by Faye Dunaway and Oskar Werner. It depicted Hamburg Jews aboard an ill fated cruise liner SS St. Louis which would be turned away from ports in the Western Hemisphere to be returned to their doom in Nazi occupied Europe,
In Manila, amidst all the rumours and apprehension, the intrepid band of brothers, the Freiders, harnessed the resources of a small sympathetic Jewish congregation in Manila. They pursued efforts in securing Philippine visas from Manuel Luis Quezon and the helpful US High Commissioner Paul Mcnutt. To even rationalize the highly controversial repatriation to the Philippines, a list of qualified Jews was made identifying specific professions and craftsman skills. Soon, they would carry with pride their being Manilaners, nurtured by a caring Jewish safe haven and would soon thrive even in worship at a Manila synagogue. This was called Temple Emil along Taft. Avenue, Manila´s main thoroughfare outside of the Walled City of Intramuros. This Jewish house of worship was named after its most prominent benefactor with a hall named after the wealthy Bacharachs. An incredible saga of humanitarian sanctuary provided by visionary Manuel Quezon is made even more noteworthy with the fact that the statesman had also donated personal real estate property in Marikina, a suburb outside Manila for settlement and cultivation. Added to this, Quezon put forward an ambitious MINDANAO PLAN for massive relocation of the displaced Jews. No other undertaking by the Allied Powers was made despite various intelligence reports and smuggled documented accounts from the Nazi concentration camps disguised as labor resettlement sites.
In what would be a futile race against time and human apathy, the proposed MINDANAO PLAN would have provided sanctuary for the persecuted tribes of Israel. With a yearly quota of 10,000 Jewish refugees, the largely unpopulated southern Philippine Island of Mindanao would have been a New Jerusalem, had not the politicians griped about these dangerous "Communists" and "Christ killers". This prevailing and despicable streak of Anti Semitism would eventually slam the doors for refuge for the Jews into the ravenous Death Squads of Himmler and Eichmann, literally fanning the flames of the death chambers. Deemed too overly ambitious, the Mindanao Plan had its counterparts in other refuges, as in Puerto Rico, Costa Rica and in Madagascar. But had Quezon prevailed, for all the so called schemes that he was also accused of (typical of a Filipino sociocultural flaw and American isolationist leanings), hundreds, if not thousands, would have been saved from the cattle cars bearing fodder for Auschwitz and Treblinka.
The resurgent Israeli nation does not have short memories and instead, what was only to have been a simple marker, a seven meter high work of art, dubbed Open Doors, designed by a prominent Filipino artist, was instead unveiled in Rishon Le Zion, the fourth largest city in Israel. MANILANERS who survived the Holocaust and the Japanese occupation were present in the solemn ceremonies, and were grateful for their deliverance largely due to a prized Philippine visa by an unheralded and even obscure Asian leader, Manuel Luis Quezon. Honored as a Righteous Gentile, he joins a stellar elite of humanitarians, who deserve to be recognized for daring to stand against an evil supremacist horde whose progeny remains to this day. Think about a revisionist cabal which denies that the Holocaust even happened and derides it as a hoax. Six million Jews slaughtered in an unprecedented Final Solution crafted by an obsessive yet highly efficient SS led combine should be turning in their mass graves and gas chambered tombs. Steven Spielberg shot his epic Schindler´s List in a grainy black and white canvas. And if one is reminded about a little girl in red (scarlet cloaked amidst the sea of somber black and gray) and her unfortunate fate in that film , I must say no one would even dare humor these Holocaust hoax spin doctors.
Every Filipino should be proud of Manuel Luis Quezon, his courage and his humanitarian spirit which deserve mention. Having opened doors for the persecuted Jews to escape from certain extermination, a grateful nation like Israel values the Philippines own Herr Oskar Schindler and honors the heroes with their rightful place among the Righteous.
We should not also forget about the feisty Brawler from Baler. If an award winning film about the siege of the last Spanish contingent in the Philippine struggle for Independence was made and set in that historic town, would anyone care to do one for a Filipino honored as a Righteous Gentile? Consider the moving line from Schindler´s List, which a grateful legion saved from extinction carved on a ring they gave their savior. "Whover saves one life, saves the whole world entire."
Manuel Luis Quezon had helped save over a thousand lives, not of his own countrymen, and not even of his same faith. As a Filipino and Righteous Gentile , he now also belongs to the world.