SCENE 1

THE GREAT DEPRESSION (1929)

The Great Depression was a worldwide economic slump that began as an American crisis. The
1920s was a boom decade for American companies, which tallied up record production figures,
ever-increasing sales and millions of dollars profit. Few seemed to believe the boom would end
– but it inevitably did. The trigger was industrial and agricultural over-production: American
companies had grown so rapidly that by the late 1920s they were making more goods that could
be bought by consumers. This, in turn, led to falls in sales, prices and profits.

Germany appeared to be on the brink of civil war. The young Weimar Republic was wracked by
armed street fighting waged mainly between Communists and Nazis. Foreclosures,
bankruptcies, suicides and malnourishment all skyrocketed. Six million Germans, 40 per cent of
the working population, were unemployed; and thousands found themselves without a place to
live… As anxiety and fear gripped the masses of unemployed men, blatant prejudices
resurfaced against full-time female workers.

WINNING OF THE NAZI PARTY ON THE PARLIAMENTARY (1933)

The grim atmosphere of the early 1930s greatly contributed to the rise of Hitler’s Nazi Party as it
left the Germans desperate for a strong leader. They considered the German government to be
weak and the actions of Bruning, the chancellor only added to the bitterness of the German
nation. They suffered due to the harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles and the Great
Depression left many with huge financial problems, which were only worsened by the
chancellor’s decision to cut unemployment pay and wages. Thanks to a very successful
propaganda campaign focused on the poor and the suffering, the Nazi Party rose from only 12
seats in Reichstag in 1928 to becoming the largest party in 1932 with 230 seats.

Although the Nazi Party had become very powerful, they lost close to two million votes in the
November 1932 Reichstag elections, which meant that they only had 33 percent of the vote,
and not the majority they needed. Papen, who wanted the position of vice chancellor and
thought he could control Hitler, convinced Hindenburg to form a coalition with the Nazis and
appoint Hitler as chancellor. Hindenburg finally gave in and appointed Hitler as chancellor.
Hitler’s final grab for power was when he negotiated with the Reichstag members to give him
temporary “emergency” powers for four years, enabling him to act without the consent of
parliament or the German constitution. While negotiations were taking place, his large military
force was surrounding parliament with the threat of war, should they refuse. They didn’t have
much of a choice but grant him what he wanted and Hitler became absolute ruler of Germany.

Quoted in the script was Hitler’s first address as Chancellor of Germany.

TYDINGS-MCDUFFIE LAW (December 1933)

The Philippine Independence Act is a U.S. law that provided for Philippine independence. It is a
slightly revised version of the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Bill passed by the U.S. Congress in 1933.
The U.S. Congress overrode the veto but was rejected by the Philippine Senate upon urgings.
Quezon wanted an amended bill. The new bill named, The Philippine Independence Act was
authored by Senator Milliard Tydings (Democrat) and Representative John McDuffie
(Democrat).

The Tydings–McDuffie Act, officially the Philippine Independence Act, is a US Federal Law that
established the process for the Philppines, then an American colony, to become an independent
country after a ten-year transition period. Under the act, the the 1935 Constitution of the
Philippines was written and the Commonwealth of the Philippines was established, with the first
directly elected President of the Philippines.

NEW PHILIPPINE CONSTITUTION AND PHILIPPINE ELECTIONS (1955)

The 202 members of the adopted by the Constitutional Council on 8th February 1935with 177 to
1 vote a constitution approved by the US authorities in March. With this constitution, the
Philippines become a Commonwealth of the United States. There is also a governor with veto
rights against laws. The Commonwealth Act occurs on November 15, 1935 in force. For the first
time, Filipinos were able to vote for their fellow Filipinos for office.

NUREMBERG LAWS (1935)

The Nuremberg Laws is the name for three laws that were set into practice in Germany in 1935,
and that were valid until 1945. They are named after the city of Nuremberg where the legislative
assembly met.

 Gesetz zum Schutze des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre (Often
called Blutschutzgesetz, law concerning the protection of German blood and honour). This
law made it illegal for Jews to marry non-Jews. It also made it illegal for these people to
have sex with each other. The law provided for long prison terms for the people who did not
obey it. Strangely enough, these were only for men, women could go away without prison
term (if they told about it).
 Reich Citizenship Law : This law basically said that only people of German or closely-related
blood could become citizens - in other words: Jews (and some others) could not. All Jews
employed by the government had to quit their job. They also lost their right to vote.
 Reichsflaggengesetz Strictly speaking this is not one of the Nurenberg Laws. It was
published with the others though. It made the swastika the official flag of Germany.

The Nuremberg Laws, as they became known, did not define a "Jew" as someone with
particular religious beliefs. Instead, anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents was
defined as a Jew, regardless of whether that individual identified himself or herself as a Jew or
belonged to the Jewish religious community. Many Germans who had not practiced Judaism for
years found themselves caught in the grip of Nazi terror. Even people with Jewish grandparents
who had converted to Christianity were defined as Jews

ASSASINATION OF ERNST VOM RATH (1938)

The assassination of a top German diplomat triggered Kristallnacht, the organised Nazi pogrom.
Herschel Grynszpan a 17-year-old Jew living in Paris, learned that his whole family had been
made to go back to Zsbaszyn in Poland, even though the younger children had been born in
Germany.
On November 7 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a Jew, walked into the German embassy in Paris
and shot Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat, five times. Vom Rath died two days later. Nazi
propagandists condemned the shooting as a terrorist attack to further the cause of the Jewish
"world revolution", and the pogrom was launched.
Herschel told Vom Rath “You are a filthy Boche and here, in the name of 12,000 persecuted
Jews, is your document.”, moments before killing him.

KRISTALLNACHT (NOVEMBER 9-10, 1938)

Kristallnacht (also called Reichskristallnacht, Reichspogromnacht, English: Night of the Broken

Glass) was a two-day pogrom that happened against Jews in Nazi Germany and parts
of Austria. It was between 9 and 10 November 1938. About 30,000 Jews were moved
to concentration camps, and over 1,500 synagogues were pillaged and partly destroyed. Also,
almost all Jewish cemeteries in Germany and Austria were destroyed. This marked the change
from discriminating against Jews to actively persecuting and deporting them.
INDIGNATION RALLY (NOVEMBER 19, 1938)

There were other good people in the Philippines who had expressed moral outrage at the
racism against the Jewish minorities after the Kristallnacht, people like then University of the
Philippines president Jorge Bocobo who made a public speech denouncing such atrocities.
Bocobo was a Protestant. After Kristallnacht, he and other good Filipinos created a Committee
for Racial and Religious Tolerance. They took a public stand. They showed that, here in Manila,
the Nazi policies were intolerable. They went to a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. They
organized an indignation rally at the Ateneo in Intramuros.
That indignation rally at Ateneo in Intramuros was chaired by Quintin Paredes. It was held on
Nov. 19, 1938. Over 1,000 people attended, and this was before the texting era. The rally was
to protest what was happening to the Jews halfway around the world. The main speaker was
UP president Bocobo.

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SCENE 4

THE POKER NIGHT

The Frieder Brothers (Alex & Philip) are cigar men and owner of S. Frieder & Sons. To lessen
the cost of production, the family extended their business (Helena Cigar Factory) to the
Philippines, where their cigars were harvested and made.
Alex Frieder had played poker with the likes of Dwight D. Eisenhower; Paul McNutt, the U.S.
High Commissioner of the Philippines; and Manuel Quezon, the Philippine president. In early
1938, McNutt conferred with Philip, telling him he would allow Jews to immigrate to the
Philippines if the Jewish community in Manila would guarantee their financial support. Frieder
and the refugee committee agreed, at which point the list of acceptable occupations was
devised, which included physicians, engineers, technical specialists and a rabbi, among others.
By late October 1938, the first group of refugees, more than a hundred, had been approved to
receive visas to enter the Philippines.

Around the same time, Alex Frieder was returning to Manila to take his brother's place as head
of the cigar factory and director of the Jewish Refugee Committee. He did whatever he could to
assist refugees, even if sometimes they didn't meet all the committee's requirements

The Frieders decided to seek the help of their poker buddies to get the Philippines to become a
haven for the fleeing Jews. But these were no ordinary poker buddies. One was Paul V. McNutt,
the American High Commissioner for the Philippines; another was a young officer named Col.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the aide of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, then Field Marshall of the
Philippines; and then there was Manuel L. Quezon, the president of the Philippine
Commonwealth.

Col. Eisenhower’s task was to organize a plan to bring Jews to settle in Mindanao. President
Quezon faced the formidable task of winning over the anti-Semitic members of his own cabinet
as well as those in the political opposition led by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo who viewed Jews as
“Communists and schemers” bent on “controlling the world”. In a letter written in August
of 1939, Alex Frieder wrote of Mr. Quezon’s response: “He assured us that big or little, he
raised hell with every one of those persons. He made them ashamed of themselves for
being a victim of propaganda intended to further victimize an already persecuted
people.”
To the members of his own Catholic Church who were prejudiced against Jews, Quezon asked:
“How can we turn our backs on the race that produced Jesus Christ?”