Quezon's Game

Philippine Commonwealth President Quezon broadcasting to his countrymen in Manila, from Washington, D.C., 1937 (Wikipedia Commons)

An audio recording of President Quezon was preserved and one can listen to it here.

This was a speech he made for his people and is in English and then in Spanish.

Quezon's List

About four years have passed since we featured former Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon and talked about how he was part of a "game" of life or death, which he being the head of state of an island nation along with others playing the game were able to allow the safe passage of about 1,300 Jews out of Europe and into the Philippine Islands during the Holocaust.

At that time, we kind of joked that a script entitled "Quezon's List' should be made into a movie based from this little known historical event, just like 'Schindler's List'.

Big Plans to Save Jews

President Quezon really wanted to save as much as he can and already planned to give safe refuge to as much as 10,000 European Jews, who were facing untold atrocities and imminent death.

What was tricky was that the Philippines was also caught up with the War in the Pacific as they got over ran and went under the control of Imperial Japanese forces. So Quezon and his group of friends should be able to outwit not only the Nazis in Europe but also the Japanese in Manila.

Now four years later, a movie about this was finally made and will start to be shown. It already made the rounds of international film festivals.

Official Trailer, Quezon's Game

I hope it has subtitles in English.