Cigars, Poker, and 12,000 Manila Jews



President Quezon and US High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt light up (Source jweekly.com)

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada. It’s the last day of the long weekend. It’s also a day of somber commemoration. Each year, I hear comments from the media about the struggle to keep this day relevant to Canadians. Our world war veterans are now aging. Each year there are fewer veterans alive to share in their experiences. Violence also appears to be an integral part of our pop culture in the shows we watch and the sports we follow. Moreover, Canada has become increasingly culturally diverse that the wars of some do not necessarily reflect the past of others.

I wanted to write something that could connect Filipino-Canadians to this local holiday. I pondered to discuss the stories of oppression from Japanese Imperial forces, the bravery of local guerilla groups, or the presence of American soldiers in the Philippines. Instead, I came across an unexpected story from a humble Jewish refugee, Frank Ephraim. In this blog, I want to bring to light the less known story of Manila’s Jews during the Second World War.

Manila has been home to a small number of Jews since the late 15th century. It was then that Spanish Jews (marranos) escaped the Spanish Inquisition. By the 1800s, the community grew to include a number of French Jewish merchants. Later, it became home to Russian Jewish refugees fleeing the Great War (1914-1918). By the 1930s, there were approximately 500 Jews in Manila.

It was Manila’s early Jewish community (and most notably its influential business leaders) that brought the plight of European Jewish refugees to the attention of Philippine President Manuel Quezon. Quezon’s poker buddies happened to be among those influential business leaders. American Jews and wealthy cigar manufacturers Alex Freider and his brother encouraged their friend to open the Philippines’ borders to Europe’s Jews. News of kristallnacht and the frequent pogroms in Germany had urged them to take action.

Together with US High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt, Quezon worked to expedite visas to Jews fleeing Europe in the 1940s. Approximately 12,000 Jews from Europe arrived in Manila. Today, a monument stands in Tel Aviv, Israel to symbolize this wartime friendship between Filipinos and Jews.

The relationship between these two peoples is recorded from the perspective of one Manila Jew. Frank Ephraim fled Germany with his parents in 1939. He arrived in Manila as a young boy and his narratives can  be found in his book, Escape to Manila: From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror. He notes how refugees knew little about this far away place called Manila and the thought of refuge there (unlike Canada, the UK, or the US) was uncertain. He notes the land and its people, the tropical heat as well as the poverty. He shares:

Our first impression of the Filipinos, a people of Malay descent with a rich heritage of many cultures, was their friendliness but also their poverty which was hard to comprehend in a land rich in resources. We found them to be hospitable yet caught up in an unyielding economic and political structure that favored a select group of landed families. All this was, however, beyond our immediate grasp on arrival (p.10). 

The Jewish refugees were paid when they found work – ‘a refugee salary’ which, while higher than the wretched wages paid to the average Filipino worker, was far less than what the established foreign, mostly white, employers were receiving. Yet the newcomers spoke little English and had not yet adapted to the local culture, so they were thankful for whatever they received (p.6).

These passages struck me. Although I appreciate this narrative was written by an elderly man reflecting upon his youth, I also gather a sense of empathy between the newcomers and locals. There was perhaps an intuitive need to place himself socially to where he belonged. Maybe he unwillingly sensed that he was above the average Filipino, but was altogether below the rich and wealthy foreigners. I don’t find an overwhelming sense of gratitude in these passages, but a continued sense of caution towards the inescapable presence of discrimination – Filipino or Jew. Fascinating.

I hope that this little tidbit in history can serve to remind us of how interconnected we are. Today is Remembrance Day and sadly we have yet to reach a time to know only peace and equality.

Sources:

Dan Pine. 4/4/13 “Poker pals in Philippines took gamble, saved 1,200 Jews” Resource jweekly.com (cited 11/11/13)

FilipiKnow. 2013. “Pinoy ‘Schindler’s List’: How President Quezon saved 1,200 Holocaust Jews.” filipiknow.net (cited 11/11/13) 

Frank Ephraim. Escape to Manila: From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror. US: University of Illinois Press. 2003.

Philippine Embassy in Israel. 2010. “History of Jews in the Philippines”  philippine-embassy.org (cited 11/11/13)