An Open Door: Holocaust Haven in the Philippines

In the 1930s, when nations of the world were closing their doors to refugee Jews fleeing the growing horror of Hitler’s Germany, one small island nation on the Pacific chose to do that what others would not – save those lives.

Award-winning Philippine filmmaker Noel “Sonny” Izon, Holocaust historian Bonnie M. Harris, and Filipino-American historian Sharon Delmendo have collaborated in creating a timely documentary, “An Open Door: Holocaust Haven in the Philippines,” in which this previously unknown episode in history has been beautifully captured.

And while this rescue, orchestrated and empowered through President Manuel L. Quezon, ultimately saved these refugees from the uncertainty of Europe’s future, it also gave them a new welcoming homeland as the Filipino people opened their hearts and accepted them within the fabric of Philippine society.

This event in history, the rescuing of over 1,300 refugee Jews by the small Asian Commonwealth nation of the Philippines, saved these prosecuted Jews of Europe from the fate of the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust; and while over1,300 Jewish lives when compared to six million Jewish victims f Nazi atrocities, are not so many, to those hundreds who found a haven in Manila, each Jewish life that was rescued was a blessing for more than 11,000 members of their current posterity. The greatest legacy of the Holocaust Haven created in the Philippines and retold in Izon’s fil will always be this – they healed wounds inflicted by the worst of times as only Filipinos can.

Now you will have the chance to watch the 72 minutes docu movie “AN OPEN DOOR: HOLOCAUST HAVEN IN THE PHILIPPINES” when it premiers in Tampa, Florida on Sunday, October 30, 2022, at the Bayanihan Arts & Events Center located at 14301 Nine Eagles Drive, Tampa, Florida 33626 starting at 2 pm.

A $15 donation will be required at the door. The Florida premiere is being brought to you by the Philippine Cultural Foundation, Inc. (PCFI) in cooperation with the US-Philippine Society.

Director Sonny Izon will also be present to answer questions after the movie.

DON’T MISS THIS MOVIE!

For more information, call Joey Omila, PCFI Director of Cultural Affairs at (813) 312-6518 or Nhick Ramiro-Pacis at (813) 925-1232.