Republic of the Philippines - Stamps & Postal History

RP Issues of 2015

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2015, January 27.  The Philippines Rescue of Jews from Holocaust Joint Issue

Litho Offset, Amstar Company, Inc.,  Perf 14

Singles, Sheets of 40

                   

    

 

35p  Open Doors Monument   (55,000)

 

 

Note:  25,000 copies sent to Israel for the stamp exchange

 

First Day Covers:  Manila

  

         

 

25,000 copies sent to Israel for the stamp exchange

 

Israel Post's Miniature Sheet of 15 for the Philippines-Israel Joint Issue.

 

 

Philippines-Israel Joint Issue:  Rescue of Jews from Holocaust

President Manuel Quezon, United States High Commissioner Paul McNutt, Colonel Dwight Eisenhower and the Frieder brothers, cigar manufacturers from Cincinnati, courageously coordinated the rescue of more than 1,300 Jews from Europe with the promise of a new life in the Philippines.

The story of the Manila rescue was recounted by Frank Ephraim in his book, "Escape to Manila: From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror" (University of Illinois Press, 2003). Ephraim's book is based on his research, on his interviews with survivors, and on his own eyewitness account as a child who was one of 1200 Jewish refugees who arrived in Manila in 1939.

The history of the rescue begins with the decision of the Frieder brothers in 1918 to relocate its two-for-a-nickel cigar business from Manhattan to the Philippines, where production would be cheaper. Alex, Philip, Herbert and Morris Frieder took turns overseeing the business in Manila for two years each joining a community that had fewer than 200 Jews.

In 1937, Philip and Alex Frieder met European Jews who had straggled in to Manila's port from Shanghai and heard harrowing accounts from them of the fate of the 17,000 Jews in Shanghai who were seeking to flee the Japanese after they had fled the Nazis.

The Frieders decided to ask the help of their friends to let the Philippines become a haven for the fleeing Jews.  Fortunately, one of them was Paul V. McNutt, the American High Commissioner for the Philippines; and another was Manuel L. Quezon, the president of the Philippine Commonwealth.   McNutt succeeded in convincing the US State Department to quietly allow Jews to enter Manila at a rate of 1,000 a year. (In 1939, it was increased to 1200).

But President Quezon had a more difficult task as many anti-semitic Filipinos in his administration opposed the proposal.  Quezon donated personal land he owned to the Jewish refugees.

Quezon was posthumously honored with the title "Righteous Person," which, in the tradition of Israel and those commemorating the Holocaust, the title given to Gentiles (non-Jews) who helped the Jewish people in their time of persecution.

http://haruth.com/jw/QuezonsList.htm

 

 

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Issues of 2015