Philippines and the Holocaust

President Manuel L. Quezon admitted roughly 1,200–1,300 Jews fleeing from Nazi Germany, German-occupied Europe, and Shanghai in Japanese-occupied China to the Philippine Commonwealth from 1937 to 1941.

Even prior to the onset of the World War II, Jewish people fleeing from persecution by Nazi Germany were able to reach the Philippines.

[2] Jewish refugees were admitted to the archipelago due to the effort of Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon and United States High Commissioner Paul V.

[1] The plan was first conceptualized in 1937, when Jewish refugees arrived in Manila from the Shanghai Ghetto who were evacuated by the Germans following fighting between the Chinese and the Japanese.

[3] The Frieder brothers would approach their poker buddies; McNutt, Quezon, Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower, Field Marshall Douglas MacArthur for help.

[1] Among critics of Quezon's policy were anti-Semitic members within his cabinet as well as opposition politicians such as former President Emilio Aguinaldo who viewed the Jews as "Communists and schemers" bent on "controlling the world".

[3] McNutt was tasked to convince the US State Department to issue as many visas as possible to Jewish refugees who sought to flee to the Philippines.

Frank Ephraim wrote Escape to Manila: From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror compiling his own and other Jews' accounts of their ordeal.