Manuel Luis Quezon to receive award for inviting Jews to PH
A prominent Jewish organization based in the United States will confer an award on the late President Manuel Luis Quezon on Monday for his opening the Philippines to refugees from the Holocaust between 1937 and 1941.
READ: Manuel L. Quezon honored for helping Jews
Ricardo Ramos, head of the Pilipinas Sandiwa Heritage Foundation, said the New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a 103-year-old movement against anti-Semitism, shall bestow on Quezon the Jan Karski Courage to Care Award in ceremonies on March 21.
The award is named after the Polish diplomat “who visited concentration camps and tried to warn Western nations about the plight of the European Jews,” the ADL said.
READ: Philippines: A Jewish refuge from the Holocaust
In a letter to Quezon’s daughter, Maria Zeneida Quezon Avanceña, the ADL said it would be “very proud to posthumously present this award to your father… for his heroic efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust.”
President Quezon was behind the open-door policy when the country, then an American Commonwealth, welcomed 1,200 refugees rendered stateless by the Nazi regime.
The history of the “Manilaners,” by which the refugees came to be known, has only recently been unraveled through research by Filipino-American professor Sharon Delmendo.
Delmendo is currently working on a book and a full-length documentary about this largely unknown part of Philippine history. Earlier this month, she delivered a talk on the Manilaners at the Ayala Museum.
It was through Delmendo’s presentation in 2013 that the ADL came to know about Quezon’s role in providing a home for Jewish refugees.
“Professor Delmendo gave us documents showing that President Quezon spoke out actively against anti-Semitism. It was the documentation professor Delmendo gave us, especially the materials from her book in progress, which lead us to decide to grant the Karski award to President Quezon,” the ADL wrote in a separate letter about the award.
In an e-mail, New York-based Delmendo said Quezon’s granddaughter, Aurora Quezon Avanceña, and herself will attend the ceremonies to be held at an ADL Holocaust memorial event in Florida.
Since 1987, the ADL has recognized 50 individuals from around the world who played a role in the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust.
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