help. It was during the era of the Philippine Commonwealth (1935–1946) that Jewish refugees from Europe sought a safe haven in Manila. The migration of Jews escaping Europe between 1935 and 1941 was the last major immigration of Jews to the Philippines. The first German Jews to arrive in Manila actually came from the Jewish community in Shanghai. With the occupation of Peking by the Japanese in 1937, the four million inhabitants of Shanghai were endangered. Germany's shift of alliance from China to Japan at this time alarmed German Jews in Shanghai, fearing German pressure on Japan to adopt Nazi anti-Jewish policies. Fearing for them as well, the Jewish Community in Manila, led by the Frieder Brothers of Cincinnati, organized the Jewish Refugee Committee of Manila (JRC) with the intention of rescuing German members of the Shanghai Jewish community. These Jews had already been deprived of their German citizenship, and the Gestapo presence that was taking root in Japanese areas threatened Jewish existence in Shanghai as well. When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the JRC received a telegram from Shanghai asking for assistance for Shanghai's refugee Jews. With the help of Ho Feng-Shan, the Chinese Consul-General in Austria, Austrian Jews were able to escape to other countries, including the Philippines, when Adolf Hitler annexed Austria to Germany in 1938. Manila then received 30 German Jewish refugee families from Shanghai, which then started a larger program that would eventually rescue 1300 refugee Jews from Europe between 1937 and 1941, the largest influx of Jews in Philippine history. It is important to realize that the mechanics of the refugee rescue plan in Manila involved many different people and agencies in the Philippines, in the United States, and in Germany. The refugee rescue plan also had some opponents. In 1938, Emilio Aguinaldo was quoted to hold antisemitic beliefs in his opposition to Quezon's plan to shelter Jews in the Philippines. While it was important to have the cooperation and consent of President Quezon in this refugee rescue plan, all issues of Philippine foreign affairs was still totally in the hands of the U.S. State Department and would be until the Philippines was granted independence in 1946. What is unique to the rescue of refugee Jews in the Philippines is that the Jewish Community in Manila was granted authority by High Commissioner Paul McNutt and Philippine President Quezon to operate a