The Philippines: Refuge From The Holocaust

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When I was little, I heard stories from my parents that there were some Jewish people taken refuge by the Philippine government during the dark days of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Thousands of Jews were welcome in the Philippines at the time, transported surreptitiously through American ships. The move was controversial, since not many countries were interested to take on refugees in such a grand scale. It was during the stint of UN Secretary Carlos P. Romulo, a Filipino national, when the UN approved the creation of the Jewish state in Palestine. Had it not been approved, I was told the Philippines would have offered gladly one of our Islands for the Jewish homeland. The Island in mind was Mindanao, considering the fact that it was sparsely populated at that time. Indeed, this story is not as popular as the famous Schindler’s list, said Barbara Sasser, an heir of the Frieder brothers who were among those 1,200 Jews who took refuge in the Southeast Asian country. Incidentally, there is now a documentary film, entitled “Rescue in the Philippines: Refuge from the Holocaust” which features how a tobacco businessman, former Philippine President Manuel Quezon, US high commissioner to the Philippines Paul McNutt and Army Colonel Dwight Eisenhower managed to smuggle in Jewish boat people in the country. I now understand why the state of Israel has been proven to be extra friendly and lenient to Filipinos. Filipinos have been not required to get a visa for the Jewish state, despite the stringent measures taken by the government at its borders.