A Filipino-American Effort to Harbor Jews Is Honored
CINCINNATI, Feb. 12 - It was a time when Jews were frantic to get
out of Germany, risking voyages to places they were not sure would
accept them and finding doors closed almost everywhere.
In Manila, though, a vigorous expatriate cigar manufacturer from
Cincinnati had been playing poker and bridge with the likes of Col.
Dwight D. Eisenhower; Paul V. McNutt, the American high commissioner;
and Manuel L. Quezon, the first Philippines president. When the
manufacturer, Alex Frieder, saw refugees straggling to the port
pleading for entry, he cajoled his poker cronies to let the Philippines
become a haven for thousands more.
Through his efforts and those of three of his brothers, about 1,200
German and Austrian Jews eventually found sanctuary in the Philippines
in the late 1930's, then an American protectorate…
Over the weekend, 98 of Mr. Frieder's relatives came together here
with a half dozen refugees and a grandson of Mr. Quezon to celebrate
this little-known tale of one of the war's unlikely rescues.
"They were the right persons in the right place at the right
time," said Mr. Frieder's daughter, Alice Weston, 78, who was
a young girl in Manila in 1938 and 1939 when her father and her
uncle Philip Frieder masterminded the rescue. "My father wasn't
an exceptional person. He was an ordinary businessman and he saw
this horrible situation and he thought of a way to help a little
bit."
Filipinos from the Cincinnati community serenaded the relatives
with love songs in Tagalog as well as "Hava Nagila." Mrs.
Weston, among others, sang along with the Tagalog lyrics she remembered
from childhood. There were Filipino dishes like chicken adobo. Refugees
led a Sabbath eve prayer service, and Manuel L. Quezon III, a 34-year-old
journalist in the Philippines, introduced the blessing over the
challah.
"We're a very hospitable people and we had experienced exile
and imprisonment during the Spanish colonization and the early American
occupation, so someone of my grandfather's generation would have
been conscious of the plight of refugees," Mr. Quezon said.
"We're a sucker for anyone who's suffering."
The reunion, organized by the Center for Holocaust and Humanity
Education at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion here,
was held on the 60th anniversary of the Japanese destruction of
Manila's synagogue, Temple Emil.
The story of the Manila rescue begins in 1918 with the decision
of the Frieder family to move much of its two-for-a-nickel cigar
business from Manhattan to the Philippines, where production would
be cheaper. Alex, Philip, Herbert and Morris took turns living in
Manila for two years each, Mrs. Weston said, in a community that
had fewer than 200 Jews.
Frank Ephraim, who as a child was one of the Jewish refugees in
Manila and who wrote a history of the rescue, "Escape to Manila:
From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror" (University of Illinois
Press, 2003), said that in 1937 Philip Frieder saw European Jews
arriving in Manila's port from Shanghai while it was under siege
by the Japanese. Shanghai remained an open port and eventually harbored
17,000 German Jews.
The Frieder brothers were reluctant to burden the Philippines with
poor refugees, so they focused on importing people in occupations
the country needed, like doctors. Mr. McNutt, the high commissioner,
was able to finesse State Department bureaucrats to turn a blind
eye to quotas and admit 1,000 Jews a year.
Mr. Quezon's approval was also needed. Dr. Racelle Weiman, the
Holocaust center's director, said there was a letter written by
Alex Frieder to Morris Frieder that said skeptics in Mr. Quezon's
administration spoke of Jews as "Communists and schemers"
bent on "controlling the world."
"He assured us that big or little, he raised hell with every
one of those persons," Alex Frieder wrote of Mr. Quezon in
August 1939. "He made them ashamed of themselves for being
a victim of propaganda intended to further victimize an already
persecuted people."
Mr. Frieder combed lists of imperiled Jews for needed skills and
advertised in German newspapers. The brothers and the American Jewish
Joint Distribution Committee arranged visas, jobs and housing and
raised thousands of dollars for sustenance.
Ralph J. Preiss, 74, of Manhattan, was 8 when he left Germany and
recalled his family studying Spanish on the ship because they had
read an outdated encyclopedia describing their intended haven as
a colony of Spain. "We didn't know what the Philippines was
or where it was," Mr. Preiss said…
Most refugees hoped the Philippines would be a way station to America,
yet were delighted at the kindly reception from Filipinos…
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