The MacArthur Memorial, a World War II museum and research center in downtown Norfolk, Va., will mark Yom Hashoah with a virtual lecture on Tuesday highlighting the fate of Jewish refugees in the Philippines during World War II.
The program, titled “Haven or Hell? Jews in the Philippines During WWII,” will feature writer and researcher Sandra Lanman, who will discuss her grandmother Elsie’s experience after fleeing Nazi Germany.
Elsie was among roughly 1,300 Jewish refugees who came to the Philippines between 1937 and 1941, as the country—then a U.S. commonwealth—admitted Jews escaping persecution in Europe. Lanman’s talk will explore the Philippines as an unlikely haven, as well as the dangers that followed Japan’s invasion and occupation of the islands in 1941.
Lanman’s research began in 2019, when a “serendipitous encounter on Facebook” connected her with a relative and a trove of family photos and documents, deepening her understanding of her grandparents’ experience in wartime Manila and the broader story of Jewish refuge in the Philippines.
The virtual presentation, told through film, photos and Elsie’s own words, is free and open to the public and will include a Q&A session.
