ESCAPE TO MANILA
From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror
by Frank Ephraim
2003, 248 pages 6 x 9 inches
30 photographs, 3 line drawings
Cloth, ISBN 0-252-02845-7. $29.95
University of Illinois Press

 

FOREWORD BY STANLEY KARNOW

With the rise of Nazism in the 1930s, more than a thousand European Jews sought refuge in the Philippines, joining the small Jewish population of Manila. When the Japanese invaded the islands in 1941, the peaceful existence of the barely settled Jews filled with the kinds of uncertainties and oppression they thought they had left behind.

In this book, Frank Ephraim, who fled to Manila with his parents, gathers the testimonies of thirty-six refugees who describe the difficult journey to Manila, the lives they built there upon their arrival, and the events surrounding the Japanese invasion. Combining these accounts with historical and archival records, Manila newspapers, and U. S. government documents, Ephraim constructs a detailed account of this little known chapter of world history.

"Ephraim has constructed a fascinating narrative from a rich mix of archival research, oral history, and autobiographical memoir. He offers us a stirring portrait of a community of resourceful, resilient, courageous, and compassionate individuals."

Frank Ephraim was born in Berlin in 1932 and fled to the Philippines with his parents in 1939. In 1946 he immigrated to the United States. After a career in naval architecture, he served as director of program evaluation for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U. S. Department of Transportation.

Stanley Karnow is the author of In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.

Supported by the Sheldon Drobny Family Endowment for the University of Illinois Press

OOV Bookshelf 2003

DECEMBER 2003 FEATURE Towards a Cultural Community: Identity, Education and Stewardship in Filipino American Performing Arts by Remé Grefalda, Lucy Burns, Anna Alves and Theodore Gonzalves Understanding Mindanao Conflict by Patricio P. Diaz Not Home, But Here: Writing from the Filipino Diaspora edited by Luisa Igloria The Right Place and Other Stories by Rodney Dakita Garcia Escape to Manila: From Nazi Tyranny to Japanese Terror by Frank Ephraim A Watch in the Night by Denis Murphy Lakas and the Manilatown Fish by Anthony D. Robles Gravities of Center by Barbara J. Pulmano Reyes TRI/VIA by Michelle Naka Pierce and Veronica Corpuz JULY 2003 FEATURE Ang Balabal ng Diyos / Ang Silid ng Makasalanan by Rosario de Guzman Lingat Love Gathers All by Singaporean and Filipino writers APRIL 2003 FEATURE Not My Bowl of Rice by E.R. Escobar Growing Up Filipino: Stories for Young Adults edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard JANUARY 2003 FEATURE The Stranded Whale by Linda Ty-Casper Monster by Joel Tan