The Manila Poker Club

Synopsis

In the late 1930s, as the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany and Austria intensified, five distinguished gentlemen met half a world away for regular late-night poker games. What began as an excuse to drink whiskey, smoke cigars, and discuss the political events of the day resulted in an ambitious plan to rescue as many Jewish refugees as possible from the clutches of Hitler’s Gestapo.This small group of men in Manila—Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower, Philippine president Manuel L. Quezon, US high commissioner of the Philippines Paul V. McNutt, and Jewish American businessmen Alex and Philip Frieder—shared a sense of humor, a mutual respect for one another’s cultures and people, and an innate desire to help a persecuted population. They hatched an effort to welcome thousands of Jewish refugees to the Philippines, facing off against antisemitic and anti-immigrant resistance in their own countries, the spreading Nazi menace in Europe—and eventually the Japanese invasion of their Pacific safe haven.Drawing on recently released archives and original interviews with some of the last remaining Holocaust survivors, journalist Mark Sy shines a light on the humanitarian partnership between Filipino and American freedom fighters and the harrowing experiences of some of the Jewish families they helped to rescue, when the rest of humanity chose to turn its backs on them. It’s a little-known tale of courage and compassion that ultimately saved more Jews than Oskar Schindler.