Pearl Harbor Day: Film Screening 'Rescue in the Philippines: Refuge from the Holocaust'

Refugees attend dinner at the Frieders’ home on April 30, 1940. Photo courtesy American Public Television.

By: Chris Brunner

Residents are invited to the screening of a one-hour documentary Rescue in the Philippines: Refuge from the Holocaust which tells how the five Frieder brothers helped 1,200 Jews escape the Nazis and immigrate to the Philippines.

The Frieder’s were Cincinnati businessmen making two-for-a-nickel cigars in pre-WWII Manila worked together with Manuel Quezon, the charismatic first president of the Philippines, Paul McNutt, US High Commissioner and former governor of Indiana and an ambitious Army Colonel named Dwight Eisenhower.

Eric Lipetz will add his first-person account at this event marking Pearl Harbor Day. Lipetz will share how his family of five managed to escape Belgium as the Nazi’s took over, then ended up in Manila shortly before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Come hear this miraculous story of survival spanning five years of worldwide turmoil as seen through the eyes of a child on Monday, December 10, from 2:00 p.m.– 3:30p.m. at the Parkland Library 6620 University Drive Parkland, FL 33067

Registration required. To register visit www.cityofparkland.org/library.

Author Profile

Chris Brunner: Chris has been a contributing writer at Tamarac Talk and Coral Springs Talk since 2015 and begin in high school. He is a resident of Coral Springs and is currently attending college as well as working at Parkland Talk.