"But if America's guns and cannon could defeat them, how much more so the world's most powerful airforce, the Luftewaffe? And knowing - as they do full well - that they are a geostrategic pivot and thus a target for everyone colonial in approach, would it not make sense to keep their heads down in World War II, and try to remain un-noticed?
This was not the approach of the Philipines. President Manuel Luis Quezón y Molina made a public declaration that the Filipinos hate fascism, and anyone wanting to flee Hitler should flee to the Pihilipines. This is a truly remarkable thing to say. Bombing the Philipines into the ocean would have taken the Luftewaffe little time. In fact, the Japanese occupied it much of the war.
President Quezon arranged for more than 1,200 Jewish families to receive visas and travel documents to go to the Philipines for safety. From there, more than 10,000 Jews made their way to Eretz Yisrael, and lived. The Talmud says: "A person who saves a single Jewish life, it's as if he saved the world." The Filipinos saved 10,000 directly, countless more through their joining the "Allies," and did so at the risk of not only their freedom, but their entire country's physical existence, literally." ~ Yishai Beckow
