MEMORABLE MANILA MENSCHES

PREFACE. Of the two objectives of this lead-in section, in effect one is positive (and brief) and one is negative (and not so brief). The positive purpose is to emphasize that prospective readers will learn much more from this manuscript than details about the interesting lives of three notable individuals — they will encounter coverage of significant though often little-known aspects of the history of much of the twentieth century (and even earlier).

The negative purpose, so to speak, is to indicate that one potential angle of analysis will not be utilized herein. That approach, known as revisionism, affects virtually all fields of scholarly study. According to its widely accepted definition, “Revisionism, in a general sense, refers to the act of revising or reinterpreting existing ideas, beliefs, or historical narratives, often with the intention of challenging established perspectives.” [Google AI]

The aim here at the outset is not to pass judgment on revisionism, but rather only to note its absence in the body of the text. However, as this paper touches on certain topics prone to revisionism, a digression into one of them may be useful to illustrate the point being made here.

An excellent instance of revisionism in one field is the study of World War II (WWII).  Skipping the details, suffice it to say that WWII became known as “the good war.”  Today the literature in the field is filled with works questioning that view.  A good illustration of that situation is provided simply by citing the titles of two books (without their subtitles, to emphasize the contrast) — Studs Terkel’s The Good War (1984) and Jacques R. Pauwels’ The Myth of the Good War  (2000).

And the same revisionist trend is true of the myriad subfields of WWII history.  A relevant example is that of the Japanese Empire’s internment of American and other Allied civilian nationals in the Philippines during WWII — specifically, in Manila’s Santo Tomas Internment Camp (STIC).  In that regard, the case of one recent (2024) revisionist effort will be briefly surveyed.  Its author states at the outset that “The goal of this [Masters] thesis is not to dispute the suffering of Allied citizens in the STIC” [Hyun, ii] — yet in effect that is what he proceeds to do, as a few examples will suffice to show.

 After discussing “the good war” concept, the author asserts that “Before February 1944, the internees’ description of themselves as ‘innocent victims of barbarous Japanese’ failed to describe the complexities of the STIC accurately”.  And what were those “complexities”?  The author “argues that [their] colonial and racial mindsets shaped the internees’ perception [of] and relationship[s] with the Japanese and Filipinos during and after their internment at the STIC.”  [Hyun, 2]  

Evidence of the author’s revisionist mindset is his statement that many previous studies of STIC “have not explored how these internees were intentional or unintentional agents of imperialism”; nor has STIC itself “been analyzed as a subject of [Western] imperialism.”  He claims that virtually every aspect of STIC life reflected internees’ racial, colonial and imperialistic perspectives; and those, in turn, derived from and were inherent in the U.S. conquest and “Americanization” of the Philippines.  [Hyun, 29]

Thus, for instance, even the works of STIC’s highly esteemed authors, A.V.H. Hartendorp and Frederic Stevens, “must be read with skepticism because both authors were internees at the STIC, meaning that some of their arguments and perspectives are biased.”  As an example, the author notes that “Hartendorp frequently defends American imperialism as superior to that of the Japanese.”  [Hyun, 16, 27]  (How odd.)  But enough of this digression.  [See the Roberts article for a critique of one strand of WWII revisionism.]

What is the relevance of this prefatory excursion into the realm of revisionism and its manifestations?  Its objective, as noted, is neither to defend nor to attack revisionist analyses, whether of STIC or otherwise.  Rather, by having called attention to the factor of revisionism, it can now state that this paper (a) intends to present a straightforward recounting of the histories of three exceptional individuals; (b) therefore uses an approach that precludes any dabbling in revisionism; and (c) has sought, via this Preface, to deflect potential criticism that it has ignored the revisionist perspective.  In short, its approach can be summarized with the statement Police Sergeant Joe Friday supposedly used to make on the “Dragnet” radio program long ago — “Just the facts, ma’am.”   

I.  INTRODUCTION.

After a relatively placid decade in Manila throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s, my parents and I decided in January 1942 to accept the gracious invitation of the Imperial Japanese Army.  That enabled us to take advantage of the spacious accommodations and many other amenities of the World War II resort getaway known as the Santo Tomas Internment Camp.  It was during that pre-war period, as well as later in STIC, that I met a number of colorful and intriguing characters; but few if any had life histories comparable to those of the three remarkable men discussed herein.  The fact that their histories encompassed, and in effect culminated in, WWII underscores their unusually compelling records.  At a minimum, it also makes them fully deserving of the title of “mensch” (as defined below).  

This account of the lives of the three Memorables of the title assumes that their personal records are objectively engrossing, rather than simply a matter of personal interest.  On the other hand, it is indeed true that I did know all three men “up close and personal,” as the cliché has it; that will be evidenced in due course, as my various interactions with each of them are recounted (no doubt too lengthily).  But the question of personal bias is refuted (or at least becomes irrelevant) in light of their roles in both WWI (for two of them) and WWII; in particular, their actions during the Nipponese occupation of the Philippines serve to further justify this survey.  

In a sense, this report is an offshoot of an earlier piece, which included this statement:  “The [three] personal histories I am aware of . . . are so fascinating that they deserve (and may well receive) separate coverage.”  [Meadows (a), n.p.; ellipsis added]  Providing that additional coverage could serve not only to demonstrate that those histories are indeed objectively impressive; much more importantly, it could help rectify the fact that the three Memorables are not widely known to general audiences, if known at all.  (It could also help demonstrate once again that the internet, as a source of much otherwise inaccessible material, enables study of the lives of long-ignored and little-known individuals.)

The names of the three Memorables are Joseph Cysner, Isaac Konigsberg, and Joseph Rice (to be discussed in that order). Their histories were unrelated and diverse, and for the most part their paths were only tangentially linked once they reached Manila.  As this combined survey implies, however, they had a number of commonalities.  All three were of European origins.  All three were Jewish — though only in Cysner’s case did his religious faith adversely affect his fate significantly.  All three were born well within or shortly after the 19th century.  All three eventually arrived in the Philippines by rather circuitous routes, and inevitably led Manila-centric lives.  Last, all three were victims of, and in one way or another were involved in the resistance to, the Nipponese occupation of the Philippines during WWII. 

Before proceeding, a clarification of the title’s last word is in order.  As noted, each Memorable was more than qualified to be described as a “mensch” (sometimes spelled “mensh”).  That particular word, admittedly (and jocularly), was useful to make possible an alliterative title.  But apart from such a feeble attempt at humor, that Yiddish-origin word would have been just as applicable to the Memorables had they not been Jewish.  For it has become one of the numerous Yiddish terms that have entered the American lexicon.   

[Note:  Here are some others (many can be spelled in more than one way): schtick, glitch, spiel, kibitz, bagel, schlep, klutz, schmo, kvetch, schmooze, chutzpah, yenta, kosher, blintz, bupkis, lox, schnook, schmuck, tush, schlock, nosh, plotz, maven, tchotchke, gelt, schnozzle, mazel, etc.  And the Yiddish origins of a term used in gambling circles surprised me — vigorish.] 

But what exactly does “mensch” mean?  According to the late American humorist Leo Rosten, as quoted in Wikipedia, a mensch is “someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character; the key to being ‘a real mensch’ is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, a sense of what is right, responsible, decorous.”  Wikipedia adds that “The term is used as a high compliment, implying the rarity and value of that individual’s qualities.”  As that entry further points out, “The word has migrated as a loanword into American English, where a mensch is a particularly good person, similar to a ’stand-up guy’, a person with the qualities one would hope for in a friend or trusted colleague.”  [Wikipedia (a), n.p.]  At a bare minimum, therefore, the term “mensch” as applied to the Memorables simply means a good person.  And by the way, the term can be applied regardless of the recipient’s sex.

[Note.  Leo Rosten was the author of the amusing “Hyman Kaplan” stories, which I first encountered in STIC, thanks to the Camp’s main library, and which I neglected to mention in an earlier piece listing my readings there.  (Meadows (b), n.p.)]

For sticklers for precision, there is one more point to clarify, because the word in the title is not “mensch” but “mensches.”  The latter would seem to be merely a plural form of the word, but there are some who would question its legitimacy, on the ground that there is no such word in either Yiddish or German.  That may be true, but, as one source explains, there is such a word in English. 

There are two correct plurals of “mensch” in English: “menschen” and “mensches.” Furthermore, since “Mensch” in German and Yiddish . . . simply means “person” or “human being,” it is not at all the same word that it is in English, where it means a very decent, good person. For this reason, the word . . .should be considered entirely English. Since most English speakers would recognize “mensches” more readily as a plural than “menschen”. . . some might see it as the preferred plural.  [Wilinsky, n.p.; ellipses added]

Finally, a few procedural matters to cite.  First of all, the most notable one is that for the first time in my several Philippine Internment pieces, I have resorted to the use of Appendices (as it happens, there is one Appendix per Memorable).  This method has been used because it is the most convenient way to handle certain lengthy but somewhat digressive passages. To simplify matters, the Appendices have been left within the text rather than placed at the end, where they would normally belong.  And to make clear where each Appendix ends and regular text begins, after the final paragraph of each Appendix is the following:  [End of Appendix.]

And now to the more conventional mentions.  Using a standard organizing principle, the three Memorables will be discussed in alphabetical order.  Source citations are in the form of notes within the text, while their complete entries are combined in a unified Bibliography (which also includes a few works consulted but not cited in the text). For online material, often the use of n.p. (= no page) and n.d. (= no date) is necessary.  Last but far from least are my grateful acknowledgment of and deepest thanks for the indispensable assistance of Cliff Mills and Sally Meadows.

II.  JOSEPH P. CYSNER (1912-1961).  

Cantor Joseph Cysner’s arrival in the Philippines in May 1939 served to complete the process whereby he had managed to escape from Nazi Germany.  His escape also placed him in the ranks of two related categories of European Jews.  One includes those who became known as “Holocaust survivors” (a term to be examined later).  The other and far more limited category consists of some 1,300 European Jews who were rescued from the Nazis when they were accepted into the Philippines in the late 1930s, under a program known as the “Open Door Policy” (also to be discussed later).  

The following account of these and related subjects benefits from numerous authoritative works by public historian Bonnie M. Harris.  Thanks to her extensive efforts, Cysner’s life has been fully documented, unlike the lives of the other two Memorables.  Even in Cysner’s case, however, despite those efforts the story of his life is known less to a wide general public than to a less broad audience — one mainly interested in such related topics as those of WWII and the Holocaust.   

Joseph Cysner was born in Bamberg, Germany, where his parents had gone after several earlier forced moves.  His father was born in Czechoslovakia and his mother was born in Poland.  Starting out in the late 19th century, the family had fled from Czechoslovakia to Austria, then to Poland, and from there to Bamberg.  The family of Orthodox Jews had six children, of whom Cysner was the youngest.  

After Cysner graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary in Wurzberg in 1933, he started out as a cantor, and went on to serve in two locations.  That was also the year Adolf Hitler gained power; increasingly harsh treatment of Jews ensued, especially under the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, also known as the Nuremberg Race Laws.  Among other things, those stripped all Jews of their German citizenship and of all political rights.

The Cysners, viewed as foreign (i.e., Polish) Jews by the Nazi regime, were among the most vulnerable of Nazi targets.  Cysner’s three brothers were able to emigrate, whereas his two married sisters remained in Germany; one sister later managed to emigrate, while the other sister and her family died in Auschwitz.  [Harris (g), n.p.]  Cysner himself did not plan to leave, and in fact in 1937 he accepted a lifetime contract to serve as cantor at a Hamburg synagogue.  At that time, however, the Nazi government’s policy of dealing with its Jewish population by repression changed to one of openly seeking their expulsion (and still later their extermination).  But that approach confronted competing pressures, as explained next.   

On the one hand, the pressure to expel mainly non-German Jews had been building for some time, due to their growing numbers.  The latter resulted from two major factors dating from the late 19th century.  Those were (a) the almost doubling of the Jewish population in Eastern Europe, especially Poland — too many for their traditional occupations to accommodate, and (b) the spread of anti-Jewish policies and of organized pogroms in those areas.  Even Jews who sought to assimilate into Polish society found it difficult to overcome the rampant antisemitism.  [Hertz, passim]  

On the other hand, a different kind of pressure resulted from the fact that more than 2.5 million Jews had moved from Eastern to Western Europe by 1933.  By then most foreign Jews living in Germany and Austria, close to 60,000 of them, were of Polish origins. But while they faced pressure to leave Nazi-controlled areas, they found it increasingly difficult to do so, for most countries had enacted — partly due to the global depression — strict laws against immigration.  [Harris (d), 1]  Thus there were competing pressures — the Nazi desire to expel Jews versus the obstacles to doing so. 

After Germany annexed Austria in March 1938, it became clear that the Nazi regime intended to resort to forced expulsion.  So the Polish government, seeking to avoid a large influx of returning Polish Jews, revoked the citizenship of those Polish Jews who had lived abroad for at least five years since 1919.  In retaliation, Germany passed a law that authorized the deportation of foreigners who had lost their original citizenship.  Poland then came up with an additional restriction on Jews seeking to return, whereupon the Nazis took the first major step on the road to establishing the death camps.  

On 27-29 October 1938 the Nazis carried out what they called the Polenaktion (“Polish action”).  They arrested about 17,000 Polish Jews, confiscated their possessions, and placed them on trains that took them to the German-Polish border.  There most of the deportees were to live in miserable conditions for almost a year, before they were finally allowed into Poland.  Even then, however, that did them little good, for soon Germany invaded Poland in September 1939 and started WWII.  [See Wikipedia (b), for details]  Cysner was among almost 900 Jews who were deported from Hamburg (though his mother was able to remain there).  He was one of some 8,000 Jews who were detained in makeshift tent camps at the Polish border town of Zbaszyn.  

SIDEBAR.  Actually, the first deportation of Jews already had occurred.  In early October 1938 the Nazis, who had occupied areas in Hungary and in what was then Czechoslovakia, deported some 3,000 Czech Jews to border zones.  Also important, and also involved in the burgeoning German-Polish dispute, was the issue of “the sovereignty of the Free City of Danzig (Gdansk).  Once a German port city on the Baltic, Danzig was established as a free city-state in 1920 by the Treaty of Versailles and placed under the protection of the League of Nations.”  

Hitler viewed that action as outrageous, thus even as early as 1932 a British journalist had written the following:  “I believe there must be a war in Europe” over Danzig, and “the best we can hope for is that . . . it will not spread” — a hope that of course was not realized.  Harris concludes her study of the Danzig issue thusly:  “Just as the position of Danzig has been marginalized in its importance in the WWII theater, so too did the Zbaszyn refugees. . . undergo the same kind of disinterested neglect in the annals of Holocaust history.  But the fate[s] of these two seemingly disparate events were unknowingly linked to each other” [Harris (n), 2-4, 22; ellipses added].  

At this point it is important to also call attention to another neglected link — that between the Polenaktion of late October 1938, and the occurrence less than two weeks later of Kristallnacht (“Night of Crystal”), known as the Night of Broken Glass (from shattered Jewish-owned properties).  Also called the November pogrom, it involved organized, systematic Nazi destruction, burning and looting — throughout Germany and annexed lands — of anything and everything linked to Jews.  

Nothing was spared — homes, businesses, institutions (libraries, etc.), synagogues, and even cemeteries.  In addition, some 30,000 Jewish males were rounded up and placed in concentration camps.  Hundreds died during and in the aftermath of the pogroms.  On top of all that, Jews were then blamed for the carnage and ordered to pay an “atonement tax” of one billion Reichsmarks (the equivalent then of $400 million).  [For a brief but thorough overview, see “Kristallnacht,” n.p.]  

Storefronts of Jewish-owned businesses damaged during the Kristallnacht pogrom, Berlin.

Destruction of the Dortmund synagogue, November 1938

Widely regarded as a major step leading to formal planning for the death camps, Kristallnacht understandably has long overshadowed the Polenaktion in virtually all historical accounts.  Nonetheless, the latter actually precipitated the former.  [See especially Harris (k)]  The link between the two episodes can be explained by tracing the following sequence of events.  

Initially, one of the deported families that had been relocated to Zbaszyn mailed a postcard to a son who was in Paris at the time, describing their forced deportation and squalid living conditions.  Greatly upset, the youth went to the German embassy in Paris and shot and killed an embassy official.  The Nazi regime thereupon seized on that development as a pretext for immediately carrying out their plans for Kristallnacht.  Harris concludes that “The Polenaktion not only precipitated Kristallnacht but was also the first mass expulsion of Jews from Nazi Germany: a foreshadowing of later deportations to sites of mass murder.”  [Harris (j), 19]

As for the thousands of deported Jews in camps at the German-Polish border, most of them, as stated earlier, had to remain there for almost a year.  Cysner, however, was one of the fortunate few who managed to leave the camps early — in his case, after six months.  How did that come about?  Deportees were allowed to send and receive telegrams; and, while at Zbaszyn, Cysner received a telegram from Manila from a friend and former colleague, Rabbi Joseph Schwarz (1906-1992).  According to one source, “Schwarz, the first full-time, ordained rabbi to serve in the Philippines, arrived penniless with his wife from Germany in [September] 1938 but with a [required] pre-arranged, salaried, occupation.”  [Goldstein (a), 59.]  (In this regard, the history of the Philippines’ lone synagogue, Temple Emil, is traced in more detail in Part III.) 

Schwarz soon convinced Jewish community leaders in Manila of the need for a cantor.  His presentation emphasized, among other things, the urgent need to help cope with the growing number of Jewish refugees into the islands; having nowhere else to turn, they were arriving under Philippine President Manuel Quezon’s “Open Door policy.”  (That was the rescue effort, cited earlier, that in recent years has received attention via print and film.  [E.g., see Harris (j)].)  Schwarz then sent a job offer via telegram to Cysner’s last-known address in Hamburg; it was forwarded to Cysner in Zbaszyn, courtesy of the efficient German bureaucracy.  

Cysner of course accepted the offer, and began preparing for the journey to Manila.  Skipping the many details of what was involved (some are recounted below, including his trips to Warsaw and even Hamburg), he arrived in Manila in May 1939.  [For details, see Harris (b), 37-38]  Cysner then arranged passage for his mother from Germany to Manila; she joined him there in June 1940, when she was in her early 70s — another example of the impact of the Open Door Policy.  (A brief survey of that Policy, and of related issues, would be instructive though tangential to the Cysner story; thus it is found in Appendix A.) 

Appendix A

Studies of President Quezon’s Open Door Policy understandably tend to emphasize (a) his “positive” motives — a desire to help those who were victims of Nazi oppression, just as Filipinos had long been oppressed by foreign powers, including the U.S.  It is quite likely, however, that Quezon was influenced at least as much by (b) a “negative” factor — one that could be regarded as the obverse of, and inseparable from, the “positive” element.  That factor was his antipathy both to (b1) Americans who were opposed to allowing Jewish immigration into the Philippines (led notably by the U.S. State Department), and more broadly to (b2) Americans who were opposed to granting independence to the Philippines. 

It should not be overlooked, however, that Quezon’s “negativism” also embodied a positive element — though positive in a different sense.  As one source asserts, Quezon’s antipathy to American critics of his Open Door Policy itself reflected (positive) self-interest, in the sense that it “considered [Philippine] political interests to be paramount.”  [Sunga, 72]  In other words, assessments of what is positive and what is negative often will depend on the source making such judgments.

In case of questions about any or all of the above, following are citations for each one.  An example of (a) the “positive” emphasis is praise of Quezon’s “generous offer to rescue Europe’s stateless and persecuted Jews [which] stands as a moral victory against a backdrop of an international descent into indifference and apathy.”  [Harris (m), 229]  On (b1), the presence of antisemitism within the State Department is well-known [See again Harris (m) on that, and also on how the State Department was bypassed/outmaneuvered (by U.S. High Commissioner to the Philippines Paul V. McNutt and others)].  On (b2), documentation of American opposition (especially by expatriates) to Philippine independence is clear.  [See Wheeler (a) and (b)]   

At this point it is also worth digressing to refute the claim that Dwight Eisenhower had any connection with the Open Door Policy.  The only basis for that view is that he accompanied MacArthur to the Philippines in 1935 and was his aide there until 1939; his role was to serve as assistant military adviser to help the Philippine government build an army.  However, there is absolutely no evidence that he was involved with any plans to rescue refugees from the Nazi regime.  Harris has demonstrated this at length [See Harris (l)].  Equally on point is the following brief assessment by Sharon Delmendo.

A popular myth holds that Dwight Eisenhower was centrally involved in Jewish refugee rescue in the Philippines, but extant documentation does not support this legend.  Eisenhower kept a voluminous diary of his tenure in the Philippines and published several books after WWII, but never mentioned working on Jewish rescue (other than relating that he turned down a lucrative contract to head Jewish refugee efforts across the Pacific).  Eisenhower is never mentioned in hundreds of US government documents relating to Jewish immigrants to the Philippines.  Eisenhower was entirely consumed by his duties under MacArthur, building up Philippine defense in the face of increasingly certain attack by the Japanese.  [Quoted in Quezon III, part 1 — “Cast of Characters”] 

[End of Appendix A]

“Cysner’s arrival in Manila provides the appropriate juncture at which to examine (as promised earlier) how the term “Holocaust survivor” is defined.  According to a recent survey of the issue, for decades after the end of WWII, that term was defined primarily (and, in effect, semi-officially) by survivors of the Nazi death camps.  Unsurprisingly, therefore, their definition applied only to those who had actually survived time in Nazi concentration camps, or who had served actively in the anti-Nazi resistance.  However, that narrow definition excluded what was by far “the largest group of Jews to outlast the Nazi regime” — those who, although they had not endured death camps, nonetheless had suffered greatly from Nazi actions.  In particular, that meant those who had been forced by WWII to flee eastward, mainly into the Soviet Union.”  [Grinberg, n.p.]  

Members of the latter group, who became known as “flight survivors,” led a reaction against the narrow definition of the term Holocaust survivor.  They especially rejected its assumption of a “hierarchy of suffering” that prioritized death camp survivors’ stories “and minimized those of flight survivors.”  Largely as a result of that reaction, broad definitions now are widely accepted, including by both Yad Vashem — Israel’s Holocaust museum — and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  Yad Vashem, for instance, states that Holocaust survivors are those “who lived for any amount of time under Nazi domination, direct or indirect, and survived.”  And specifically included are those, like Joseph Cysner, “who forcefully left Germany in the late 1930s.”  [Grinberg, passim]

Continuing with the definitional issue, personally I believe that the currently accepted definition is too broad.  I reached that conclusion long before writing this piece; moreover, I have since learned that Cysner himself would have agreed with it (as will be shown).  It seems to me that the broad definition of “survivorhood” replaces a narrow or qualitative “hierarchy of suffering” assumption with a broad or quantitative one — namely, flight survivors suffered just as much as did death camp survivors, albeit in different ways.   In my view, the broad definition should be modified to recognize the qualitative element.  The key word in that sentence is “modified” — this is not at all an argument to reject the broad definition as a whole (though critics might disagree).   

In my opinion, the fact of having survived a death camp, in any capacity, at a minimum deserves terminological recognition.  It seems obvious to me that there is a difference between having avoided the death camps and having endured them.  It is a difference at least in degree if not in kind — and undoubtedly so in terms of the mental as distinguished from the purely physical suffering involved.  At a minimum, therefore, the scholarly coverage of the subject should seek to formally acknowledge the distinction in some way.  As an example, replace the term “flight survivor” with “Holocaust escapee.”  All victims of the Nazis then could be called Holocaust survivors, but with a subset of victims identified as “Holocaust survivors/escapees.” 

[Note.  Before leaving this general topic, one more point:  A recent (2020) national survey found that “nearly 20 percent of Millenials and Gen Z feel the Jews caused the Holocaust.”  [Claims Conference, 1]  In other words, more than 80 percent apparently shrewdly recognize that, had Jews not insisted on living in Europe, there would have been no Holocaust.  (In case it is not recognized as such, this is sarcasm.)]

Leaving aside the definitional issue, and regardless of how others describe him, clearly Joseph Cysner was a Holocaust escapee — a fact which, to repeat, does not make his (or any other escapee’s) story any less compelling or less worthy of recognition.  Actually, and most interestingly, Cysner himself agreed with the survivor-escapee distinction.  As Harris is indirectly quoted as saying, “the Cysners did not consider themselves ‘Holocaust survivors,’ reserving that term for those who had survived Nazi death camps”.  [Indirectly quoted in Harrison (penultimate paragraph)]  

Harris herself seems to favor the broad definition, describing Cysner’s as a “remarkable Holocaust survivor story.”  [Harris (a), 9; italics added]  But she is well aware of the issue, and struggles to deal with it.  In fact, she has to admit that Cysner “was one of the lucky few who found an escape from Europe and the impending Holocaust” [Harris (c), 13; italics added].  And she frequently (and unavoidably) uses the term “escape” in this context.  [E.g., Harris (b), 38; the title for (f); and (j), 13]  Thus perhaps Harris was tacitly acknowledging the complexity of the issue when she stated that, “in the larger context of the Holocaust, they [Cysner and his mother] were both survivors”.  [Directly quoted in Harrison, n.p.; italics added]  

While Cysner unquestionably was a Holocaust escapee, that is not only because he was never in a death camp — indeed, those did not yet even exist when he left Germany in 1939.  (The first death camp murders are said to have occurred at Chelmno in December 1941.)  A number of facts provide evidence that he was not a “survivor” in the conventional sense.  But before citing those facts, a caution is necessary — make no mistake, Zbaszyn was no picnic.  To put it more emphatically, this is not an attempt to minimize the horrors of Zbaszyn, let alone of the Polenaktion as a whole.  That disclaimer having been emphasized, we can proceed.

Consider the following aspects of Cysner’s time at Zbaszyn.  To begin with, Harris herself says the refugees were “detailed” (rather than imprisoned) at Zbaszyn.  [Harris (j), n.p.]  As for Cysner specifically, for a time he lived in a private home; it was there that he received the forwarded Manila job-offer telegram from Rabbi Schwarz.  He was then able to travel to Warsaw to obtain both a Polish passport, and also a visa for the Philippines from the U.S. Consul General there.  And he even was able to return (still unescorted) to Hamburg to reassure his mother of their future, settle his affairs, and obtain funds before leaving for the Philippines.  In short, this is very clearly the record of an escapee, not a literal survivor.  

Moving on from the European scene, we turn to a review of Cysner’s activities in Manila, not only within the Jewish community but also in the city generally.  First, though, some context would help provide a better understanding of one likely reason for his extensive city-wide pursuits.  It seems that Rabbi Schwarz had had a hard time persuading the synagogue’s Board to hire a cantor; its members had agreed to do so on condition that they would “pay only a minimum salary”, because there were other jobs that would be available.  Thus Cysner “had to find side jobs in teaching, singing, or choir leadership to make a living” [Ephraim, 37, 55].  But that in no way impaired his wider activities; on the contrary, they helped him become widely known and respected in Manila high society, as reviewed below.  It turned out to be quite a change for someone who had arrived in Manila as “a little-known Jewish cantor.”  [Harris (o), n.p.]

Cysner quickly became an invaluable if not virtually indispensable member of the Jewish community.  As Harris summarizes his religious role, among other things he conducted religious services, organized choirs, taught religious classes, revived Sunday School, prepared youths for their bar mitzvahs, and arranged for the creation of various clubs.  [Harris (b), 39]  More broadly, “The Cysner home was more than a house; it was a center of Jewish culture, thought, and music” [Ephraim, 72].  In sum, Cysner served to “promote a revival of Jewish religious culture among a diverse congregation of Jews from all over the world, who were now making a new life for themselves in eastern Asia.”  [Harris (j), 41]  

Turning to Cysner’s city-wide endeavors, those were primarily in the musical realm.  He taught music courses at two of Manila’s institutions of higher learning; at De La Salle College, for instance, he started out teaching singing, and later was promoted to choirmaster.  He also conducted classes at his home, especially during the Nipponese occupation, on both religious and non-religious subjects; those included piano, Hebrew, bar mitzvah preparations, and even mathematics.  [Ephraim, 102-103]  In addition,  he “performed regularly on the radio and gave concerts for the president of the Philippines.”  [Harris (f), n.p.]  As an example of the scope of his work, on 27 March 1941, “Cysner was featured as a soloist at a ‘Chiang Kai Shek High School class of 1941’ concert held in the Manila Grand Opera House.”  [Goldstein (a), 54/note 20] 

SIDEBAR.  I can personally attest to Cysner’s private lessons, as I have noted elsewhere [Meadows (a), n.p.].  He valiantly attempted to teach me how to play the piano, but my unwillingness to practice doomed that venture.  However, he did manage to teach me to read Hebrew.  Moreover, strictly on his own, he occasionally took me to see films at the downtown theaters; one that I particularly recall was the 1936 movie “Rainbow on the River.”  Probably it has stuck in my mind because it starred a young singer named Bobby Breen, who was nine years old when the movie was made — about my own age when I saw the movie a few years later.  

[Note.  A search for Breen (1927-2016) showed that originally he was named Isadore Borsuk, hailed from Toronto, and is allotted as many as 14 pages by Google.]  

Cysner’s fairly placid post-European cantorial life was interrupted in December 1941 by the extension of WWII to the Pacific theater and the subsequent Nipponese takeover of the Philippines.  Things worsened for him when the Nipponese military began to imprison civilian enemy aliens — citizens of countries with whom Japan and its fellow Axis members were at war.  As Poland was one such enemy country, Cysner’s Polish passport (which he had obtained in Warsaw in 1939, as noted earlier) was the reason he was interned in STIC when the Camp opened on 4 January 1942.  Fortunately for him, however, a combination of five factors helped limit his imprisonment, as detailed next.  

First, as I have pointed out in previous works, the Nipponese (for reasons too complex to discuss herein), unlike their European allies, displayed relatively little evidence of antisemitism in the Philippines, especially during the early occupation period.  Second, in 1942 Nipponese Premier Tojo had instructed military leaders not to impose their religion or morality on conquered populations.  Third, Cysner’s role as a religious leader enabled Rabbi Schwarz eventually to win Cysner’s release from STIC on the grounds that he was essential to the functioning of Manila’s Temple Emil synagogue.  Fourth, on the last point, Schwarz was backed by the Nipponese army’s Religious Section.  And fifth, those appeals were supported by others from Cysner’s mother (then in her mid-70s), who pleaded for his release so he could care for her.  [Ephraim, passim]  That combination of factors enabled Cysner to receive permission to leave STIC after about nine months, in October 1942. 

SIDEBAR.  Errors of both commission and omission can be found in coverage of Cysner’s internment.  As an example of the former, one author mistakenly claimed that Cysner “was not interned and continued his work” after the Nipponese takeover.  [Goldstein (a), 64]  An example of the latter is failure to specify that Cysner was interned only briefly in STIC; this is shown in the following passage:  Just as the Nazis had done to him, Cysner “once again was arrested as an enemy alien, this time by the Japanese, and imprisoned. . . in 1942.  He survived the reconquest of the Philippines” in 1945.  [Harris (g), n.p.; ellipsis added]  The problem with that passage (which is not clarified elsewhere in the same article) is that it is easy to wrongly infer from it that Cysner had been interned throughout the occupation.  In the larger scheme of things such errors could be dismissed as trivial, but they are errors nonetheless.

At this juncture an explanation is in order for why Schwarz and others were not interned; that will also provide evidence of the relatively subdued nature of Nipponese antisemitism in the Philippines.  Probably the most important such evidence is that — to the extreme annoyance of their German allies, in Manila and elsewhere — the Nipponese did not consider Jews with German passports to be enemy aliens who required imprisonment.  Like most of his fellow escapees from the Nazis, Schwarz had a German passport, as did his wife and also Cysner’s mother, thus they were not interned.  

Even the fact that most German refugees’ passports had expired did not cause trouble; instead, they were classified as “stateless Jews” and were “treated just like other neutral foreigners”; they were described as “Jews without citizenship or country” in their expired passports.  And there was another reason they were not imprisoned — Schwarz’s “personal diplomacy and his quiet but firm stand against threats” helped in that regard.  [Ephraim, 92-93, 192].  (However, those same German passports caused U.S. and Filipino authorities to briefly jail many of the refugees after the Pearl Harbor attack.)

Of course, the situation just described does not mean stateless Jews were not subject to the laws of the occupation.  Like anyone suspected of transgressions, such as aiding the anti-Nipponese resistance, Jews received severe punishment [e.g., see Goldstein (a), 68; (d), 9]; however, such punishment was no more severe than what non-Jews received for comparable offenses.  Nevertheless, the relatively “normal” nature of Nipponese treatment of the islands’ Jews should not be overstated; two cautions are in order here, as indicated next. 

First, the fact is that examples of Nipponese antisemitism in the Philippines can be found in the relevant literature.  [E.g., see Ephraim, 131-132 et passim]  And second, whatever may have been the case in the Philippines on this issue, conditions were not necessarily the same in other Nipponese-occupied areas.  There was no such thing as a Tokyo-dictated policy governing antisemitism, and local Nipponese officials were more or less free to pursue their own inclinations on this matter.  [E.g., see Kowner for indisputable evidence of Nipponese antisemitism in another occupied area] 

After his release from STIC in 1942, Cysner resumed his duties at Temple Emil.  Despite the imprisonment in STIC of more than 200 Jewish enemy aliens, his responsibilities were no lighter than they had been before the war.  Indeed, they may have been greater, for four reasons.  First, most members of the pre-war Jewish community were escapees from the Nazis who had not been interned, as already explained.  As a result, they were more likely to be the cause — unintentionally, to be sure — of misunderstandings involving the Nipponese military than the interned long-time Manilans (aka Manileños) would have been; and any such instances might well have needed Cysner’s intervention on behalf of the escapees.  

Second, some of the non-interned long-time Manilans — including the Memorable discussed next, Isaac Konigsberg, who was a Filipino citizen — had the local expertise necessary to become involved in the resistance.  If and when they were caught by the Nipponese, as in Konigsberg’s case, Cysner and Schwarz had to try to intercede on their behalf, if that was possible.  On the other hand, third, several of those long-time Manilans were leaders of the city’s Jewish community, were mostly American “enemy aliens,” and thus were interned in STIC.  The community’s resulting leadership vacuum was filled by, and placed an additional burden upon, Cysner and Schwarz.  

Finally, and perhaps most important, Jewish leaders had to be alert to the dangers posed by the local German residents, led by the German embassy and the German Club.  Dissatisfied that the Nipponese treated European Jews as non-enemy aliens, their efforts, including widespread use of propaganda, constantly sought to provoke harsher treatment of Jews.  At one point such pressure led the Philippine Assembly to pass a law calling for the internment of aliens deemed to be dangerous.  However, aided by the fact that the Nipponese “distrusted Westerners, including their Axis partners”, Cysner and Schwarz managed to contain this threat.  [Ephraim, 117-118]  In sum, Cysner had to help cope with any problems that occurred between members of the non-interned Jewish community on the one hand, and the Nipponese and Germans on the other hand.  

On the whole, most non-interned Jews were able to stay out of trouble during the occupation.  However, their good behavior was totally irrelevant when it came to making it through the ordeal of the month-long Battle of Manila of February-March 1945.  Although most of them managed to survive, one result of the Battle is that now there are “seventy-nine Jewish deaths recorded on a special memorial stone in the Manila Jewish cemetery” [Goldstein (b), 77].  That total, one source notes, was “approximately ten percent of the [non-interned] Jewish community. . . a rate similar to that of Manila’s overall population.”  [Goldstein (e), 133-134]    

In addition to the human toll, Temple Emil also was a casualty of the Battle.  After American aircraft began bombing in the Manila area in September 1944, the Nipponese took over the synagogue and stored munitions there.  One result of the takeover was that the Cysner and Schwarz homes “became new religious centers for the community.”  [Harris (p), 61]  But a far worse result was that Temple Emil was almost totally destroyed during the Battle; that gave it the dubious distinction of having been the only synagogue ever under the U.S. flag that was demolished during WWII.  

Both the Cysners and the Schwarzes were among the survivors of the Battle, and they remained in Manila for a short time afterward, dealing with its aftereffects on the Jewish community as well as with Jewish members of the U.S. military.  Cysner, for example, sang at the first post-liberation services on 28 March 1945, for Passover; some 4,000 GIs were present then at “the enormous San Lazaro Racetrack.”  Cysner also conducted open-air services, primarily for GIs, at Rizal Stadium.  And Cysner and Schwarz led open-air services on 9 November 1945 “to inaugurate the project to help rebuild Temple Emil.”  [Ephraim, 169, 174, 177]  

The synagogue was rebuilt by 1947, thanks in large part to the efforts, financial and otherwise, of Jewish GIs and military chaplains stationed in the Philippines.  [On their roles, see Kreiter, 7, 31, and National Museum, n.p.]  As for Schwarz, the individual who was primarily responsible for rescuing Cysner from the Nazis (as recounted earlier), he stayed on until 1949, when he and his wife left the Philippines for the U.S.  After a lengthy tenure as rabbi in Michigan, he retired to Maryland, where his wife died in 1991 and he died in 1992 at the age of 85.  

Cysner and his mother moved to San Francisco in 1946, where he served as cantor until 1949.  While still in Manila, he had started corresponding with Sylvia Nagler (1922-2007), whom he had known in his home town of Bamberg, Germany; they had last met there in 1937.  A fellow Holocaust escapee, she had left Bamberg for London in 1938.  A remarkable individual in her own right, she then managed to have her parents and two younger brothers move to London from Germany, and supported them by working as a dental technician.  She also helped numerous relatives and friends recover from the effects of WWII.  [“Sylvia Cysner Obituary,” n.p.]  Based on Sylvia’s account, Harris states that “it was obvious to me that Sylvia had saved her family nearly single-handedly” [Harris (i), n.p.].

After years of correspondence, Cysner finally was able to persuade Sylvia to visit him in San Francisco.  His persistence finally paid off, and they were married there in 1948, “in a big wedding that drew not only local congregants, but people from Europe and the Philippines.”  [Harrison, n.p.]  In 1951 they moved to San Diego, where he served as cantor and where they settled permanently.  (When my parents traveled to the U.S. from Manila in 1955, we visited the Cysners in their San Diego home.)  But not too long thereafter, tragically Cysner died suddenly of a massive heart attack in 1961, at the age of only 48.  His wife then raised their three daughters on her own, again working as a dental technician.  She later moved to Los Angeles, where she died in 2007 at the age of 84.            

The life of an individual with Cantor Cysner’s exceptional history could be summarized in either (or both) of two ways.  One would be in the form of a broad, impersonal-type conclusion that focuses on his historical significance rather than on the nature of his personal impact.  Such an approach might emphasize, for example, that he was “one of two individuals of WWII to have survived both Nazi imprisonment at Zbaszyn and Japanese internment at Santo Tomas and lived to tell about them both” [Harris (h), Introduction].  

A personalized finale would stress that Cantor Cysner was beloved by all who knew him, and particularly by his students.  In one poignant testimonial, a former student, who was born in 1922, stated nearly a century later, in a 2020 book, that Cysner “was the most important influence on my life during my adolescence” in the city of Hildesheim, where Cysner was first employed as a cantor.  [Stern, n.p. (chapter 12)]  Another former student (from Manila days) declared that Cysner “had a golden voice, a personal warmth, and an infectious spirit. . . .  We can still hear him sing.”  [Ephraim, 192-193; ellipsis added]  Finally, there is his wife’s not-unbiased but heartfelt judgment: Cysner “was the warmest, kindest, most gracious human being that you can imagine.”  [Quoted in Harris (i), n.p.]   

III.  ISRAEL L. KONIGSBERG (1890-1972).   

From Manila latecomer Cysner we move on to Israel Konigsberg, one of the two Manila old-timers covered in this study.  Both of them had started families before reaching the Philippines; and both had arrived on the Manila scene by the 1920s — Joseph Rice before and Konigsberg during that decade.  Their histories date to their 19th-century Central European origins, and encompass exceptional experiences in both WWI and WWII.    

[Note.  The name Konigsberg usually is spelled either as Koenigsberg, or with an umlaut/diacritic over the letter “o”; but that formality is dispensed with herein, since Konigsberg himself did so.  It should also be clarified (facetiously) that Israel Konigsberg was not related to Allan Konigsberg, who is better known as Woody Allen.]  

To begin with a widely-cited quotation by way of providing context, consider the following assertion.  “Three important names appear in the Jewish community of Manila shortly after the turn of the [20th] century: Emil Bachrach, Morton I. Netzorg, and Israel Konigsberg.”  [E.g., Wikipedia (e), n.p.; Harris (e), 6, and (o), 54]  The three arrived in Manila in 1901, 1911, and 1924, respectively.  As the disparity in dates shows, Konigsberg was a relative latecomer to the islands compared to the other two.  Conceivably in recognition of that fact, the Wikipedia version of the quotation is identical, except for one detail — it refers to “three important names” yet it cites only the first two and omits Konigsberg’s name.  

The significance of the first two men in the quotation derives from the following facts.  Emil (short for Emmanuel) Bachrach is widely considered to have been the first Jewish American to settle in the islands; he became so influential that Manila’s first synagogue was named Temple Emil.  Morton Netzorg — along with his wife Katherine — was in one of the first groups of American teachers known as the Thomasites (because they arrived on the U.S. Army Transport Thomas); the U.S. government sent teachers to the Philippines, starting as early as 1901, to develop an American-style educational system, using English at all levels.  As for Konigsberg, although as noted he was a chronological outlier, the reason for his inclusion in the above quotation will soon become evident.   

The previous paragraph could raise a few questions from readers, so two possible — if not fairly obvious — such queries will now be answered preemptively.  First, why does the quotation at issue not include two of this narrative’s Manila Memorables, Cysner and Rice?  The answer: because they are not comparable to the three men in the quotation — Cysner of course was an extreme latecomer (1939); while Rice, unlike Bachrach and Netzorg, was not active in Manila’s Jewish community.  

Second, why does this survey of Memorable Manilans (aka Manileños) not include Bachrach and Netzorg, who were highly influential in their respective fields (and who will be heard from again, very briefly, later)?  Aside from the fact that I did not know them well (he said jokingly), actually the only reason is that they did not have personal histories at all comparable to those of the three Memorables.  That claim is explained in the following Sidebar (accompanied by some gratuitous recollections).   

SIDEBAR.  To support the above claim, the Bachrach and Netzorg histories are very briefly outlined next.  As noted in the Introduction, I had met a number of interesting individuals during the 1930s, and I decided to insert at this point personal remembrances of several of them, starting with those in the quotation at issue.  This historical excursus will conclude with notes on some really early (pre-20th century) American arrivals in the islands.      

Bachrach (1874-1937) was born in Russia (in Belarus), emigrated to the U.S. (either in 1889 [Galang, 88] or in 1892 [hubbry, n.p.]), and mainly for health reasons kept heading westward.  Seeking both better health and business opportunities, eventually he ended up in the Philippines, where he became a leading entrepreneur and benefactor (e.g., in 1907 he brought the first automobile to the islands).  In sum, “Bachrach will be remembered as a tough businessman and negotiator as well as a benevolent philanthropist who certainly helped shape the history of Manila’s economics.”  [Gopal, n.p.  Also see Galang, 88]  

As for Netzorg (1884-1946), his background was rather prosaic.  He was born in the U.S. — in Michigan; he graduated from the U. of Michigan; and, as already noted, he (along with his wife) became a leading educator, and later a business owner, in the Philippines.  Like Bachrach, he was influential in the Jewish community as well as in Manila generally.  [See Geni, n.p.]  In my opinion, however, these two individuals do not have particularly intriguing histories of general interest, and therefore do not warrant coverage herein. 

[Note.   While I did not personally know Bachrach, I remember seeing him at Manila’s synagogue; my father had worked for him in the early 1930s, which is why he pointed him out to me.  On the other hand, in addition to having known Konigsberg, I also personally knew Netzorg, both pre-WWII and within STIC; I mention this because it is clear to me that his early death at 62, not long after STIC was liberated, resulted from the aftereffects of internment.]  

At this point two other types of early arrivals to the Philippines will be discussed, mainly for the record.  More or less in the Cysner mold are those who also left Germany in the 1930s, except that they did so well before, and thus much more easily than, Cysner did so.  The second kind includes those who arrived before as well as during the Spanish-American War, preceding even such early arrivals as Bachrach.  Examples of each type will be briefly considered, in that order.  Some personal comments again intrude in the first one, which begins with another quotation.

A second oft-cited observation, though not on a par with the quotation cited earlier, is that “The first two German Jewish refugees from Hitler to reach the Philippines may have been Karl Nathan and Heinz Eulau” in June 1934.  Their move was encouraged by Eulau’s cousin, Dr. Kurt Eulau (1899-1952), a German Jew who had lived in the Philippines since 1924 and had become a Filipino citizen.  [Goldstein (e), 125-126; Ephraim, 15]  At that time he was employed as a physician by a British firm.  His affidavits of support made it possible for his cousin and Nathan to enter the Philippines.  (Kurt Eulau and his Polish-born wife later moved to California.)    

As for the two men he befriended, Heinz Eulau (1915-2004) did not stay long; in 1935 he left Manila for the U.S., where after WWII he became one of the biggest names in my own field of political science.  His influence is exemplified by the facts that he served a term as president of the American Political Science Association, which later established an annual “Heinz L. Eulau Award” in his honor.  Unlike Eulau, Karl Nathan (1913-2003) remained in Manila long after he first arrived; as late as in the mid-1960s I was still kidding him about his remarkable resemblance to the Hollywood movie star Paul Henreid.  Nathan and his wife later moved to Israel, and then to the U.S.; he died in Oakland, California, in 2003 at the age of 90.   

Najib Tannun Hashim

One final subject remains, concerning very early arrivals — Americans who reached the Philippines prior to the 20th century.  One individual who has received attention in this regard was a Syrian-American trader named Najib Tannun Hashim (1869-probably 1930s).  He (and his brothers) were naturalized in the U.S., and had converted either to Christianity or to Judaism, depending on which source you read.  Hashim arrived in the Philippines in 1892, and soon became involved with Philippine independence groups, José Rizal, Admiral Dewey, and then various businesses, including founding of the Manila Grand Opera House.  In fact, “An August 1923 American Chamber of Commerce Journal describes [Hashim] as ‘the real pioneer of American commercial establishments in the Philippines.’ ”  [Couttie, n.p.; also see Clarence-Smith, passim, esp. 447; and Gleeck (b), 4]  His colorful history deserves lengthy coverage on its own (though not from me).

Apparently the first U.S.-born entrepreneur in the islands was a Jewish Spanish-American War veteran named John M. Switzer (ca. 1874-1939?).  If so, that would give him chronological precedence over Bachrach.  A former classmate of Herbert Hoover at Stanford University, Switzer was discharged from the Army in 1901 on Cebu and proceeded to build a canned-goods distribution service.  [JTA News, n.p.]  Eventually he became politically active in both countries.  For instance, as president of an import-export business in the Philippines called the Pacific Commercial Company, Switzer in 1924 warned a U.S. Congressional committee that Japan was using “insidious encouragement” to promote Filipino sentiment for independence from the U.S.  [NYT, 8]  By 1929, his activism resulted in a publication (now in the Yale University Library) titled  “A square deal for the Philippine Islands” [See Switzer, 1-35].  His views on Philippine independence were attacked by such Filipino leaders as President Manuel Quezon and future president Manuel Roxas.  [Hutchinson, n.p.; Daily Illini, 1]

Now finally back to Israel Konigsberg.  He was born in 1890 in Galicia, an area in eastern Hungary, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire — which hereafter is cited as the AHE. There is very little in the public record on Konigsberg’s early life prior to the start of WWI in 1914.  During that war, the AHE — and thus Konigsberg — fought on the side of Germany and its allies.  (The latter included the Ottoman Empire, which I go out of the way to mention because my father fought against the Ottomans in WWI.  He was an underage American volunteer in the British army in what was then Mandate Palestine, where he was living after moving there from Oregon; and he was in on what is known as the recapture of Jerusalem from Muslim control.)

It is worth pointing out that Germany and its allies were known collectively as the Central Powers — which, in effect, was a precursor of the Axis alliance of WWII.  Their WWI opponents, known collectively as the Entente Powers, included France, Britain, Russia, later Italy and then the U.S. in 1917.  They were roughly equivalent to the Allies of WWII — that is, except for one noteworthy oddity.  Japan, a member of the Axis in WWII, fought on the (future) Allied side in WWI; that was mainly because of a treaty with Britain as well as a desire to extend its power in Asia beyond its borders.

WWI began with a famous incident — the assassination of AHE Archduke Franz Ferdinand.  Soon thereafter Konigsberg was drafted into the AHE army, classified as an ersatzreservist — a reserve not qualified for the regular army but called up when necessary to fill out a regular unit, which in his case was infanterieregiment 9 (translation self-evident).  He had trained as a cantor, and was in training to become a rabbi, when his studies were interrupted by WWI.  During the war he may have served as a (non-ordained) rabbi; in any case, he did serve as a Jewish chaplain in the AHE army, which included large numbers of Jewish troops. 

Konigsberg was fortunate not to have been among the war’s casualties; for example, in the August 1914 Battle of Galicia alone, both sides incurred an estimated combined total of 750,000 casualties.  But eventually he became a victim anyway — as a prisoner of war.  Enemy forces captured him twice — once in November 1915, and on a later occasion of unknown date.  [Coburn, n.p.]  I could find no information about his captors, but, since he was from Galicia, it can safely be assumed that he was captured by Russian forces on the eastern front rather than by Entente forces in the west. 

It can also be assumed, therefore, that he was released from his second captivity no later than 1917, because that is when Russia withdrew from the war following the Bolshevik revolution of that year.  Presumably Konigsberg then returned to his home town of Mizun Stary in the Dolina district of Hungary.  An online search indicates that the town is now in Ukraine; however, on a 1948 ship’s manifest (for the S.S. President Cleveland), Konigsberg stated that he was born in Galicia, Poland; so that is where his home area must have been relocated after WWI.  

SIDEBAR.  It is interesting to trace the turbulent history of Galicia, which “as a geopolitical entity was created [in] 1772”.  At that time the region, which had been located within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was annexed by Austria — the AHE was not created until 1867.  Just over a half-century later, however, “in 1918, Galicia was wiped from the world’s maps, with the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.”   [Areta, n.p.]  What had been Galicia was then restored to Poland; and later still, after WWII, the former Galicia was divided between Poland and the then Ukraine SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic). 

As it happens, my mother also was born in Galicia when it was part of the AHE.  During WWI she and her family had to flee from the notoriously antisemitic invading Cossacks.  After WWI her home (like Konigsberg’s) was in the area of Galicia returned to Poland; thus, when she arrived in Manila in 1928, she had a Polish passport, which later served as her entrée to STIC.  

Galician borders overlaid with modern state borders

Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914 (Galicia in red)

When Konigsberg returned to his home in Galicia, conditions there were horrendous — just as they had been throughout the AHE during WWI, and especially so in Galicia.  That entire period witnessed the emergence of a number of serious problems, most notably severe food and energy shortages; inflation that some estimated as high as 1,000%; the prevalence of black markets; ethnic conflicts and movements for secession; and the impact of heavy wartime casualties.  [Beck, passim]  On top of that, there was a harsh military dictatorship that sought to keep discontent under control.  The dictatorship began to ease slightly in 1917, but its after-effects and persistent post-war shortages brought about the effective end of the AHE (though its formal termination did not occur until 1921).  [Judson, passim]  

The AHE collapse in turn created an additional issue for Konigsberg, and for Jews in general.  As one source points out, Jews had supported Austrian participation in WWI in large part because that allowed them to demonstrate their loyalty to Austria (which for the most part did not persecute them) as well as Jewish unity; some 300,000 Jewish soldiers served at the front lines alone.  With the collapse of the AHE, however, Jews suddenly found themselves living not under the protection of an empire but within new and separate national states, which mostly were intolerant of Jews and other minorities.  [Rozenblit, passim]  Thus, in view of the appalling conditions and drastic changes that Konigsberg encountered upon his return home, it is understandable why he decided to leave Galicia.   

Other questions, though, cannot be answered for sure — namely, why, how, and when Konigsberg ended up where he did.  What is known is that he had arrived in Shanghai, China, by at least the early 1920s, and most likely earlier.  There were two aspects of Shanghai that might have influenced his decision.  No doubt the far less important consideration, but one worth citing anyway, is that Shanghai by the 1920s was already a vibrant, cosmopolitan, and jazz-happy city, known as “the Paris of the East” (as I have detailed elsewhere [Meadows (c), n.p.] ).  

The second factor concerned the Jewish presence in the city.  At that time Sephardic Jews were the dominant Jewish ethnic subdivision in Shanghai — Jews of Iberian Peninsular, North African, and Middle Eastern (aka Mizrahi) origins.  In the minority were Ashkenazi Jews — those of Central and Eastern European ancestry.  After the Russian revolution, however, Konigsberg may have been influenced by and part of the large influx into Shanghai of Ashkenazis from Russia and other Eastern European countries.  [JCC, n.p.]  

Whatever the explanation, Konigsberg no doubt had good reason to travel to Shanghai — but, unfortunately for his full history, he did so via an unknown route, quite possibly including Russian territory.  At any rate, the cantor settled in Shanghai and soon secured a position in one of the synagogues there.  His functions included serving as a teacher and preparing boys for their bar mitzvahs; and he also undertook additional cantorial training.  Once established, he married Sarah Meyer of the city’s Jewish community; and their first child, a boy named Ephraim, was born in 1924 (more on him later).  

At this point the Philippines enters the picture.  Konigsberg arrived on the Manila scene only because of what was happening within the city’s Jewish community.  Construction and then consecration of the country’s first synagogue had been completed in 1924, thanks to financial support from the community’s wealthier members, led by Emil Bachrach and Morton Netzorg.  The community then decided that it needed a permanent spiritual leader to take over from its lay rabbi at the time, a Russian Jew named Mottel Goldstein.  Before him, either other local laymen or traveling rabbis were relied on to conduct services.  (States one source, “At one point an itinerant rabbi commuted between the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.”  [J. Goldstein (c), 7] )  

The Jewish community in Shanghai was much larger than the one in Manila — estimates vary, but probably about 2,000 Jews lived there, as against a few hundred (around 150 families) in Manila.  Thus Mottel Goldstein was sent to the Chinese city “to explore the possibility of hiring a rabbi.”  When he met Konigsberg, the latter’s “cantorial training and his expertise in blowing the shofar (the ram’s horn used in religious services) impressed Mottel Goldstein, and he offered Konigsberg a tryout with the Manila congregation.”  [F. Ephraim, 14]  For details on what happened next, a digression is called for into the story of Konigsberg’s son, Ephraim. 

Ephraim A. Konigsberg was born in November 1924 in Shanghai, four months before his family moved to Manila.  He was a prodigy, as he demonstrated at an early age (except for one misstep — he tried to teach me to play chess).  Perhaps reacting to the facts that his parents originally were from Europe and that his first language was Yiddish, he did something drastic.  In 1938, at the age of 14, he “camped out at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, insisting he wanted to be an American, and then immigrated to the States by himself.”  

In time (skipping all the details), Ephraim “earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering [at USC in Los Angeles] and eventually opened his own company, Konigsberg Instruments [Inc.], which specialized in miniature medical implants.”  [Pournelle, n.p.]  (“Included in his time at USC, was a year in which he took 63 semester units, nearly double the normal load of 32, while holding down part-time jobs, also.”  [Coburn, n.p.] )

Ephraim Konigsberg’s relevance at this juncture derives from his explanation of what happened after his father accepted Mottel Goldstein’s invitation to Manila.  One writer, a good friend of “Eph” (as Ephraim was known), quotes Ephraim in the following passage.  “[Israel Konigsberg] was recruited as a cantor and an unordained rabbi for a synagogue in Manila.  According to Eph, ‘They couldn’t afford a rabbi, but they could afford a cantor for the high holidays . . . [so] he went there [to Manila], and when they heard him, they decided they had to have him all the time, plus he had the classic rabbinical training, though he wasn’t ordained . . . (WWI had interrupted his schooling)’ ” [Coburn, n.p.; ellipses in the original].  So, after Konigsberg had performed High Holiday services at Temple Emil in September and October 1924, he was hired on a permanent basis.  After his son was born in Shanghai in November, he moved his family to Manila four months later.

Once in Manila, Konigsberg became fully established in his new surroundings, as a full-time rabbi/cantor and as a Manila resident (and later as a Philippine citizen).  That is of personal interest, for it means that he was in all respects “at home” on the scene when my (future) parents arrived, separately, in Manila in 1928.  Konigsberg very likely became my father’s first close friend who was a Manila resident rather than an Army colleague (as was the case with Joe Rice, the next Memorable).  And, because my parents met for the first time (by their own account) at Temple Emil, it is conceivable that Konigsberg may even have introduced them to each other.  Finally — and this is fact, not speculation — soon after my father was discharged from the Army, Konigsberg officiated at their wedding in February 1930.  (And their sponsors, as I have just learned from writing on the back of a recently-discovered photo, were the Levines — Hyman Levine was Emil Bachrach’s brother-in-law.)

There then developed yet another link between the Konigsberg and Meadows families — this time after I had appeared on the scene, and after we had experienced misfortune in 1931.  At that time we lived in an apartment building located on what was then Calle Isaac Peral, about a block from what was then Dewey Boulevard, in the Ermita district.  A fire broke out one night in October 1931 in our building and forced its occupants to evacuate.  I have always had two fleeting but vivid memories about that occasion, each lasting no more than about a couple of seconds.  The episode ended that night when the Konigsberg family rescued us and put us up for several days until we were able to return to our apartment.  A detailed account centered on those two fleeting memories, and also on how they can be validated, is presented in Appendix B. 

Appendix B

In 1982 my parents finally left Manila permanently and moved to South Florida (for several reasons, including the sub-tropical weather).  My wife and I used to drive from Maryland to Florida to visit them for the holiday break between semesters (and for the whole winter, after I retired).  One January night they arranged a dinner for us and for former Manila residents who also lived in Boca Raton (relatives of the family that had sheltered us in December 1941 as the invading Nipponese army approached Manila [as cited in Meadows (d), n.p.] ).  That night I asked my parents a question about the past — something I had never done before, to my everlasting regret (as I have bemoaned previously).    

After dinner there ensued the inevitable reminiscing about old times in Manila.  The conversation at one point reminded me of the aforementioned fire, which I had never previously discussed, for I had seen no reason to do so.  That reminder prompted me to ask my parents how old I was at the time of the 1931 fire.  I then learned for the first time that I was ten months old at that time.  Whereupon I realized that the believability of my memories of the episode would be in question, were I to reveal them (which I then did).  That issue had never bothered me before, not only because I had never discussed the matter with anyone, but also because I had not known my actual age — although I had sensed that I was just a baby.  In other words, nobody else had known about the memories, so there was nobody to challenge them.

Before describing those memories, some remarks are in order on the controversial subject of the validity of early memories.  I am only too aware of claims that it is simply not possible to have authentic memories dating to earlier than two or three years of age at the earliest, let alone to less than one year of age.  In addition, there are various studies that claim, for example, that “people manipulate their own memories.”  As one such study was summarized, “Essentially, this means we shape our memories in such a way that we protect our positive self and tend to mitigate the challenges posed by negative memories that do not fit our self-image” [Weiler, n.p./final paragraph].  In my mind I have neither negative memories to mitigate nor a positive self to protect — unless, of course, my contention that I have such early memories is viewed as a positive rather than as what I think it is: a simple statement of fact.  

I have two comments to make on this general topic — and in so doing, I should emphasize, I am not trying to impress anyone or to change any minds.  It is absolutely irrelevant to me, as well as to the status of this paper, whether anyone believes me or not.  My first comment is simply a general statement of fact: a fire that forces occupants out of their apartment building in the middle of the night would be the kind of extraordinary, if not traumatic, event that would make a lasting impression, almost regardless of one’s age.  The second point involves logical reasoning, rather than experiential impact; as spelled out below, it should serve to substantiate the first point — that is, to enhance the credibility of the memories stemming from an extraordinary event.  (Similar validation should also be provided by a recently-discovered study that I have added at the end of this Appendix.)  

My first memory of the occasion is that it was at night, and my father was holding me while we watched a large fire in the distance, its brightness accentuated by the darkness.  We were among a group of people standing around us watching the fire, which was about a block away.  That is the extent of the first transient memory.  In my second fleeting memory, it was also night, and I was in a crib, looking through its bars at two children, a boy and a girl, who were sitting on the floor staring up at me; and that is the extent of it.  Each memory, to repeat, lasted only a couple of seconds.    

Those two ephemeral memories have always been with me.  Unlike another childhood memory [as detailed in Meadows (e)], they never bothered me in any way, for I did not think they were unusual or that there was anything more to be known about them.  I was perhaps about four or five years old, and had known the Konigsberg family literally all my life, when my recognition crystalized that the Konigsbergs had taken us in after the fire and that the two children I had seen from the crib were Ephraim and his younger sister Rebecca.  That recognition seems to have developed through a kind of osmosis, so to speak — that is the best way I can think of to describe it.  

Additionally, we lived a few more years in the same apartment building where the fire had occurred (as the Manila telephone directory reveals).  As a result, I had the opportunity to place the two memories in context — that is, to figure out on my own that we had been standing on Dewey Boulevard while watching the fire, and that it had been affecting our nearby apartment building on Calle Isaac Peral.  In short, at an early age I had inductively and independently arrived at a circumstantial explanation of my two fleeting memories; the only thing I did not know was my exact age at the time. 

Thus far the likely impact of an extraordinary event — in this case a fire — on memory in general has been pointed out; now to the logical reasoning that I believe confirms my two specific memories.  As might be expected, the guests at my parents’ dinner that night in the 1980s understandably were quite skeptical of the validity of my memories.  As we talked, I asked my parents whether they remembered where we went after the fire had evicted us.  Oddly, neither could recall who had taken us in — until I reminded them it was the Konigsbergs who had come to the rescue.  My parents’ recollections having been refreshed, everyone at the dinner conceded that my memories might well be factual.  And that leads to the final point — the aforesaid logical reasoning. 

The crux of the matter is that my parents and I had never — repeat, never — before discussed anything about the fire in the nearly 60 years (at that time) since it had occurred.  It seems to me, therefore, that because I remembered the Konigsbergs’ role and my parents did not (until I reminded them), logic dictates that my two flashes of memory were indeed authentic, for they did not come from my parents.  Nor did they come from the only other possible source, the Konigsbergs, with whom I had never discussed the matter either (and in any case they could not have provided the few details of what I remembered — nor could anyone else have done so).  In sum, I firmly believe — or rather, I know — that the two memories at issue are indisputably genuine, regardless of their believability.  

An incredible — indeed, an almost providential — coincidence occurred as I was nearing the final stages of a first draft of this piece. The 20 March 2025 “All Things Considered” program on National Public Radio aired a segment titled “Why don’t we remember being babies?  Brain scans reveal new clues.”  The point of this recent addition is not to discuss the research itself (the whole segment can be accessed at NPR.org). Rather, the point is to emphasize the following excerpt — in particular, the third paragraph, which I have bolded.

These results [presented above] allow scientists to “put the time stamp of our first memory a little bit earlier than when we thought possible,” says Flavio Donato, a neurobiologist at the University of Basel who wasn’t involved in the research.

He says it now appears that infancy isn’t a passive, forgettable stage of our lives — a relevant consideration for how we raise and educate children, and even how we understand early trauma or stress.

“It’s an important question,” says Donato, “how these traumatic events [such as a fire — MM] might lead to memories or traces in the brain that might persist for a long time and might even influence the way in which this person will develop.”

There’s still a lot to figure out.  Just how durable are the memories we may be storing as infants?  And if they’re still there, locked away in our older brains, are they forever off limits? [Clearly not — MM]

“The question is,” asks Turk-Browne, “could you circumvent that in some way to help kids, or adults even, potentially reactivate old memories?” [Why not? — MM]

Probably it would be easier to defend the validity of my traumatic first early memory (of the fire) than of the clearly trivial second one. On this point, however, another fortuitous discovery of another very recent article (25 September 2025) helps explain the persistence of the second memory. According to a study published in Science Advances and reported in the Washington Post, “the brain selectively strengthens noncore [insignificant] memories linked to important experiences. This memory enhancement process uses emotional salience to stabilize fragile memories.” In other words, “the study finds that our brains selectively strengthen certain memories when they are associated with important experiences, in a mechanism known as memory enhancement.” To repeat for emphasis, people in the study “were more likely to remember neutral memories that came after a major event if that event was important or meaningful.” [Timsit, n.p.] To summarize the combined effects of the two recent studies discussed above: quite obviously they serve not just to defend but also to enhance the plausibility of my two early memories.
[NOTE. I should emphasize at this point that, regardless of the validity of my early memories, that issue has nothing at all to do with the validity of the coverage of Part III as a whole. By the same token, whether or not the reader believes the validity of the memories is (or should be) irrelevant to their consideration of the rest of Part III.]

[End of Appendix B]

Returning to Konigsberg’s story, he served a relatively uneventful period of years, until 1938, as Temple Emil’s rabbi/cantor.  (During his occasional absences, for whatever reason — illness, vacation, etc. — my father, a rabbi’s son himself, sometimes presided in his place.)  But conditions began to change by the late 1930s, as a result of the influx of Jewish refugees under the Open Door Policy, as described in Part II.  As noted there, the arrivals included, in 1938, Rabbi Joseph Schwarz, who in turn then arranged for the arrival of Cantor Cysner in 1939.  According to at least two sources, Schwarz was “the first full time, ordained rabbi to serve in the Philippines” [Goldstein (c), 9; Ephraim, 31].  

After Schwarz took over as rabbi at Temple Emil, Konigsberg no doubt was glad to relinquish his duties.  Until then he had been “a very busy man” who “had learned to perform kosher slaughtering” of animals to supply the handful of Jewish families in Manila that were strictly kosher.  [Ephraim, 71]  Thus Konigsberg was able to put an end to that onerous chore, as well as to his other rabbinical/cantorial tasks.  He then could devote himself full time to what became his primary interest — running the various bookstores he had already opened (and/or perhaps taken over) years earlier, well before 1938.  It is not known why, how, or when he developed that interest, but the evidence is clear that he did so.   

Such evidence can be found as early as in the 1933-1934 Manila telephone directory; it listed two bookstores under Konigsberg’s name — Legarda Bookstore, and The Reliable Bookstore.  In the 1937-1938 directory he was linked with three stores — Reliable Store, Rizal Bookstore, and Manila Book Company (which was on the Escolta, Manila’s “main drag”); and his wife was listed as assistant manager of the third store.  In the 1939-1940 directory he was billed as “President and Manager, Reliable Book Store, Manila Book Company.”  That was the same listing in the last pre-WWII directory, that of 1941 (the first volume covering one year only), which also named his wife as vice-president of both of those stores.  Thus by 1939 his occupation had become that of “business manager,” as he listed it on a 1948 ship’s manifest.  And thus Konigsberg was able to help “many penniless refugees [from the Nazis] get their start” by employing them in his bookstores.  [Ephraim, 68] 

Although he had retired as rabbi, it was most fortunate for Konigsberg (as explained later) that he continued to substitute for Rabbi Schwarz during the latter’s occasional absences.  He did so for several years after retiring, including in particular during the Nipponese occupation period.  During WWII Konigsberg was not interned because, as already noted, he had become a Filipino citizen and thus was not considered to be an enemy alien.  Eventually, however, the fact that he had substituted for Schwarz proved to be literally life-saving, as detailed next. 

Because he was not interned, Konigsberg was able to provide financial assistance to the anti-Nipponese resistance, as well as to civilian and military prisoners.  He did so by using his bookstores, especially the one on the Escolta, as distribution centers, in effect, for funneling aid to Filipino couriers and to certain internees released from STIC on short-term passes.  He had occasional contacts with one internee in particular — a key STIC leader, who is discussed next.  

Earl Carroll (1905-1982) had been a prominent businessman in the insurance business before the war (and after the war he co-founded and was president of the Philippine American Life Insurance Company, better known as Philam Life, and presently known as AIA Philippines).  After STIC was established, the Nipponese picked Carroll to head the Internee Executive Committee; and later he also served in other leadership posts.  After STIC Liberation in 1945, Carroll wrote a series of ten single-page articles, labeled as chapters, for the San Francisco Examiner; the series, titled “The Secret War of Santo Tomas,” was published daily during a period in mid-August 1945. 

SIDEBAR.  In the course of his series, Carroll made the striking observation that the American internees “served our country more effectively in Santo Tomas than we would have been able to” in the U.S.  He explained his assertion thusly:  “So long as we 2,500 Americans were behind that sawali fence at Santo Tomas, and so long as our Government made no apparent effort to get us out [i.e., via repatriation], it could mean only one thing to the Filipinos: Uncle Sam intended to come back.  Our mere presence there kept many a wavering Filipino from going over to the enemy.”  (Carroll, Chapter 6, n.p.) ] 

Interestingly, indirect confirmation of Carroll’s assertion later came from an American former internee who had been in the Davao internment camp.  After the war he described rumors in that camp in 1943 as follows: “[T]he Japanese had a plan of taking all Americans . . . out of the Philippines . . . because of the fact that as long as Americans were in the Philippines, this kept up the morale of the Filipino people,” who believed that the Americans’ presence was why MacArthur would keep his word to return.  [Abbitt, 60; ellipses added]  

Because Carroll was in charge of Camp finance and supplies, he was able to leave STIC to conduct official Camp business, such as buying food and other supplies for internees.  As Carroll put it, “I would fake camp business and wander off downtown to make the exchange, an old raincoat with capacious pockets over my arm.”  He could then “go into the money black market and trade IOUs — American promises to pay if and when [i.e., after the war] — for Jap occupation pesos” (derisively known as Mickey Mouse money).  [Carroll, Chapter 5, n.p.]  One of Carroll’s trusted traders was Konigsberg, whose Escolta bookstore provided a relatively safe meeting-place. 

This is how Carroll described Konigsberg:  “A Russian Jew with Filipino citizenship, he ran a bookstore and felt he owed his prosperity to Americans.”  (There is no evidence that Konigsberg was a Russian citizen; it is conceivable, though, that he might have acquired a Russian passport in the course of his travels from Hungary, perhaps through Russia, to Shanghai.)  When the two would meet, Konigsberg would hand Carroll “sheaves of Mickey Mouse for my IOUs” even though “I told him frankly his chances of recovering on them were slight.”  On top of that, Konigsberg would give Carroll additional pesos (not for IOUs) to be sent via the underground to POWs in the Cabanatuan military prison camp.  [Carroll, Chapter 5, n.p.]  (As I mentioned in an earlier piece, at his bookstore Konigsberg had passed money to my father during our release on a one-day pass in December 1943.  [Meadows (a)] ) 

SIDEBAR.  According to a 1964 source, Carroll “was awarded the United States Medal of Freedom for services rendered to the American and allied nationals during the war.”  [Brich, n.p.]  Other sources claim that Carroll was awarded the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom (successor of the above medal) for the same reason.  However, Carroll’s name does not appear on any list of recipients of either medal; thus, although he may have received an award of some sort, its exact title is uncertain.  

The Nipponese never caught Carroll, but they did learn that Konigsberg was providing “money and medicine to an underground courier service that supplied American prisoners of war.”  That discovery happened because they found his name “on a list kept by an American missionary who was arrested and tortured.”  She had organized the courier service Konigsberg had been supplying, and she intended to use the list to make sure “that those who helped [the resistance] were rewarded after the war.”  In February 1944 the dreaded Kempeitai, or secret police — widely regarded as even worse than their Nazi SS equivalents — arrested Konigsberg and took him to their headquarters in Fort Santiago.  There he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be shot the next day.  [Ephraim, 119-120]

[Note.  One author mistakenly claimed that the death sentence was carried out.  In a passage corrected in his later works, he said that the Nipponese “arrested, tortured, and murdered several Jews at Fort Santiago” and that “Some, such as . . . Konigsberg, were active participants in the anti-Japanese resistance.”  (Goldstein (d), 9; ellipsis added)]  

There are two versions of what happened after Konigsberg’s death sentence.  One version is that after he was returned to his cell to await execution, by incredible good fortune he was seen there by a Nipponese officer who, as a civilian several years before the war, had been befriended by Konigsberg.  That officer had Konigsberg’s sentence commuted to life imprisonment; and two months later he was transferred to the notorious Muntinlupa Prison, where he spent “the next ten months barely surviving on starvation rations.”  [Ephraim, 120-121]  

The other version is that “a sympathetic Japanese officer recognized ‘Father Konigsberg’ as a member of the Board of Directors of Manila’s Temple Emil.  Konigsberg had indeed occasionally substituted for Manila’s rabbi [as pointed out earlier], and was thus spared.”  [Goldstein (a), 68]  Actually, it is quite possible to reconcile the two versions, merely by assuming that it could have been the same officer in both accounts, motivated by gratitude (in the first version) and/or by religious tolerance (in the second version).  

Moreover, both versions can accommodate the additional assertion that, in July 1944, Konigsberg — who had already escaped execution, for whatever reason — was instead sentenced to serve three years in Muntinlupa.  [Salazar, 376]   However, no such reconciliation is possible with Earl Carroll’s mystifying and bizarre claim that Konigsberg “escaped . . . the night before he was to be shot” [Carroll, Chapter 5, n.p.; ellipsis added].  That is out of the question — it simply did not happen. 

[Note.  Although Konigsberg was not executed, he did undergo the gruesome “water cure,” as he disclosed after the war.]

Konigsberg’s harrowing story continues into the period of his Muntinlupa confinement.

“While in Muntinlupa Konigsberg had another miraculous escape.  As American forces approached Manila in early 1945 . . . the Japanese soldiers decided to kill all inmates serving a life term before they retreated to The hills . . . .  Japanese jailers came for Konigsberg, calling him from a roster, but there was no response. They threatened to take Filipino hostages if he did not step forward.  Suddenly a prisoner called to the Japanese and pointed to the corpse of a man who had died the night before, saying “There he is.”  The ruse worked [whether the prisoners arranged that in advance is not explained] and the Japanese scratched Konigsberg off the list and left.  After liberation, the gaunt, starving Konigsberg managed to leave Muntinlupa Prison and with help from passing American soldiers made his way to [STIC], where his wife and daughter Rebecca found him.”  [Ephraim, 167; ellipses added]

During the months of Konigsberg’s incarceration, it should be emphasized, his wife and daughter had an extremely difficult time.  According to his daughter, “If it wasn’t for the compassion of a local convent that provided us with food and shelter until we could get back on our feet, we wouldn’t have survived the war” [Saks, 77].  The fact that the Konigsberg family survived the Battle of Manila is even more notable than is Konigsberg’s survival, for he was in Muntinlupa rather than in the midst of the fighting.  And in addition to the Konigsbergs, to repeat, the Cysner and the Schwartz families also managed to survive the fighting.

Along with Cysner, Konigsberg participated in 1945 Rizal Stadium open-air services, held primarily for members of the U.S. military; he was involved in the reconstruction of Temple Emil; and he served as vice president on the temple’s new board of directors.  After the synagogue had been restored, rededication ceremonies were held on 17 August 1947.  At that time, “After reciting the most important Jewish prayer. . . Israel Konigsberg kindled the Eternal Lamp that hangs over the Holy Ark of the Covenant.”  [Ephraim, 174, 188; ellipsis added]  

After the war Konigsberg made a fairly rapid recovery from his Nipponese-imposed torments, although he began to use a cane (which he is holding in this 1951 photo).  In the post-WWII period Konigsberg continued to operate his bookstore(s), and he did some travel, as in the case of a trip to the U.S. in 1948 on the S.S. President Cleveland.  But as a Filipino citizen, he remained in Manila for several years, unlike Cantor Cysner and Rabbi Schwarz, both of whom had left for the U.S. by the late 1940s, as indicated earlier.  

Eventually, however, Konigsberg and his wife moved to California, to live near their son Ephraim (apparently in preference to moving to New Jersey, where their daughter Rebecca lived in much colder climes). Konigsberg died in the Los Angeles area in 1972, and his wife died soon thereafter.  Not having been a teacher as Cysner had been, Israel Konigsberg apparently has not evoked any publicized expressions of admiration and love from former students; without question, however, he certainly won the respect of all who knew him. 

IV.  JOSEPH RICE (1882-1970)

A.  Introduction

The last of the three Memorables is the redoubtable and mustachioed Joseph Rice — Joe Rice as he was known to all.  He was in the U.S. Army when he first arrived in the Philippines during the 20th century’s second decade, likely in 1918; given his age, he could even have been among the early U.S. Spanish-American War troops, had he been born in the U.S.  Yet despite that fact and his extraordinary history, Rice has received relatively little attention in (accessible online) Philippine-related literature.  That is the case as compared with coverage not only of the other two Memorables, but also of American expatriates in general.

And that is also the case even regardless of authors’ fields of study.  For instance, leading authorities on Philippine (and Asian) Jewry, such as Jonathan Goldstein and Bonnie Harris (both much cited in Parts II and III), make no mention of Rice whatsoever.  The same applies to writers on the history of the American role in the Philippines, such as Lewis Gleeck, who wrote extensively on that subject; he did not mention Rice in his comprehensive survey of The Manila Americans (1901-1967).  In light of such facts, an obvious question arises — what might explain this lack of coverage?  That question can best be answered only after reviewing Rice’s story; thus possible answers will be presented at the end of Part IV. 

[Note.  Since the other two Memorables were not American citizens while in the islands, some might question why the Hungarian-born Rice qualified for inclusion in the Gleeck book.  The answer is that Rice had become a U.S. citizen years before he arrived in the Philippines, as will be noted later.]

Nonetheless, various sources have supplied sufficient information for a relatively thorough Joe Rice narrative.  The usual basic secondary sources, online and print, have been far more than supplemented by what I regard as two primary sources.  These are (a) official documents, governmental and otherwise (citizenship and passport applications, military records, ship’s manifests, etc.); and (b) material provided by Dorothy Rice, a granddaughter of Joe Rice — she is one of the daughters of his Manila-born son, Joseph F. Rice.  Lastly, a minor source, as in the Cysner and Konigsberg cases, has been my personal knowledge of Joe Rice.  Altogether, the available material has made possible an account lengthy and complex enough to utilize subtitles. 

As an absolutely essential primary source, Dorothy Rice merits additional recognition for her indispensable contributions. A California native and resident, she is a self-described “late-blooming author.” Her past and current activities, far too numerous to list here, include that of Executive Director of the State Water Resources Board, among many others.

A notable recent effort by Dorothy Rice involved reading and commenting critically on a near-final draft of this, her grandfather’s story. And most important for that story, she very kindly (and patiently) made available to me a trove of invaluable material, of both a personal and non-personal nature. (She noted in an email that most of that material was acquired from her cousin Steven Goodyear, who in turn received it from his mother, Ruth Rice [Goodyear], Joe Rice’s first child.)

The personal category included photographs, notes, and published work. Notable in the second category was a highly informative article, one which requires attention for procedural reasons. That article, based on an interview of her grandfather, appeared in a 1963 issue of the Pacific edition of the military publication Stars and Stripes. Hereafter it will be cited in the body of the text as “S&S”, and in text-notes as “Mills” (the name of the author of the S&S interview). It should also be pointed out that text-notes for works by Dorothy Rice will cite “Rice” and not “D. Rice”; there is no need to distinguish her writings from those by Joe Rice, because there are none of the latter.

B. From Hungary to the U.S., via the French Foreign Legion

And now to the story of Joe Rice, whose comparatively lengthy coverage herein derives from the several complex aspects of his history.  Joe Rice originally was named Josef Reisz.  He was born either in November (passport application) or December (gravestone) of 1882.  His birthplace was either Nyitra/Nitra (passport application, gravestone) or Oslany/Oszlany (family records); both sites were villages in Hungary, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  There appear to be no online records of him or of his family in Hungary. 

Little is known about Rice’s early life, aside from the fact that he left Hungary in 1899, when he was still only 16 years old.  The reason for his youthful departure likely would be unknown if not for a terse 1905 note of his (from Dorothy Rice’s collection); it will be discussed at the proper chronological point.  A few accounts cite speculation that Rice left Hungary perhaps to join “the merchant marine” [e.g., Rice (b), n.p.], but there is no evidence of that.  All reliable records agree that he joined the French Foreign Legion in 1899.  Stationed in Algeria, he served in the Legion for five years.  Unfortunately, no information is available on that period, other than this photo.    

From Algeria he proceeded to France, and from there he departed for the U.S.  According to a ship’s manifest listing alien passengers to the U.S., Josef Reisz sailed on the S.S. Hamburg from Boulogne, France, on 30 September 1904, and arrived in New York on 9 October 1904.  The manifest also contains the following information: Reisz was a Magyar from Hungary, 21 years old, last residence Algeria, occupation “tinsmith,” and in possession of the princely sum of $5.00.  

The manifest further notes that Joe Rice intended to visit his brother, Samuel Reisz; that Samuel had paid for Josef’s passage; and that Samuel lived in St. Louis, Missouri (at 1589 Pine St.).  Thus we now turn briefly to Samuel Reisz’s side of the story.  It was largely unknown until Cliff Mills unearthed several important official documents.  But before discussing their information, note that henceforth the Reisz brothers will be referred to by the names they soon adopted — Joseph “Joe” Rice and Samuel “Sam” Rice.  (Neither one, by the way, had a middle name). 

Sam was the older brother by just over one year.  He was born in October 1881; his date of death is unknown, but likely it was in the 1950s, when he would have been in his 70s.  His birthplace, unlike Joe’s, was Nagy-Sallo, Hungary.  Their parents were Israel Reisz and Teresa Klein Reisz.  Sam’s education did not continue beyond the sixth grade, whether by choice or by necessity is not known.  Nor can it be known for sure what he then did, but his later history makes possible an educated guess that he must have spent time learning a particular trade, as explained next. 

Slightly more than one year after Joe had left Hungary in 1899, Sam immigrated to the U.S. from Liverpool, England, on 1 January 1901, and for no known reason settled in St. Louis.  From the aforesaid documents, it can be plausibly inferred that there he was most likely employed as a bookbinder.  Moreover, those records reveal that he remained a bookbinder throughout his life — for that is how he is consistently listed in various official documents extending through 1950.  In any case, he earned enough money to pay for Joe’s passage to the U.S.  

Sam probably had written to Joe in Algeria, urging him to come to St. Louis after leaving the Foreign Legion.  In addition to saying he would cover the cost of the trip, to arouse Joe’s interest he probably emphasized two things: (a) the forthcoming 1904 St. Louis Exposition (which came to be regarded as a World’s Fair, and which was later featured in the 1944 movie “Meet Me in St. Louis,” with Judy Garland); and (b) that the Exposition would close after October. Thus Joe Rice, after arriving in New York on October 9, traveled directly to St. Louis, most likely by train, though there is no record of that.

There are at least two, and possibly three, significant facts relating to Joe’s stay in St. Louis.  First, in 1905 he and Sam wrote brief messages on a small notepad page, found within the Dorothy Rice collection.  The writing is in German, but there is also a separate notepad page containing a later translation into English.  The messages explain the brothers’ early departures from Hungary.  At the top of the note is the following:  “In memory of our beloved, unfortunately so early deceased parents.  Your brother, Samuel.”  Next there is “St. Louis Aug. 14, 1905”, followed by this poignant statement:  “To my dear parents, whom I didn’t know, because of that I have become a restless wanderer.  Would they be alive I never would have become a nomad.  Your loving son, Joseph”.  

Information is lacking as to what caused the parents’ early deaths.  However, one possible reason is that there was a worldwide cholera pandemic in the 1880s and 1890s, and also that a smaller cholera epidemic occurred in Hungary between 1883 and 1893.  [Google AI]  That feasible explanation would certainly align perfectly with the timeline of the Reisz family, but of course it is only speculative.  However, at least we know why the orphaned brothers left Hungary at such young ages — both were still teen-agers — and, in addition, why they had no personal reason to return. 

The second significant fact is that Joe Rice definitely visited the St. Louis Exposition/World’s Fair.  Formally known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, it attracted almost 20 million visitors.  The Fair was open from May through October of 1904, so Joe’s October arrival in St. Louis was quite timely.  Interestingly, he told his 1963 S&S interviewer that he traveled to the U.S. in order to visit the Fair — apparently he made no mention of his brother, though clearly both reasons prompted his trip.  In any case, the significance of Joe’s visit stems from the fact that, according to both the 1963 interview and Rice family records, it was at the Fair that Joe “happened to see and admire the U.S. Army 16th Inf. Regt. marching in a parade and decided to enlist.”  [Mills, 6; italics added]  

There is a possible third significant aspect of Joe Rice’s St. Louis visit; but, unlike the first two, it is based largely on speculation rather than on hard evidence.  If it is true, though, the nature and extent of its potential impact on Joe Rice would be so compelling to contemplate that it is difficult to refrain from calling attention to it.  Its basis, at least, is respectably factual: the largest and most popular destination at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition was the one involving a recently-acquired U.S. possession — namely, the 47-acre Philippine Exhibit.  [Orosa, 1-2]  It is quite conceivable, therefore, and certainly it is tempting to think, that Joe Rice’s interest in the country where he would later spend about half of his life initially might have been aroused in St. Louis in 1904. 

It appears that Joe Rice’s first enlistment in the U.S. Army was for three years, starting in 1906, although some sources put it at 1905.  The 1906 date is more plausible for two reasons.  First, available records indicate that enlistments were for three years, and Army records show that Rice re-enlisted in 1909 and 1912. Joe Rice is pictured at left, ca. 1906, from S & S. The second reason is that other sources indicate that apparently both brothers had decided by 1906 that it was time to move on from the Mound City, a St. Louis nickname. (The nickname was immortalized by that great jazz outfit —one of my favorites — the Mound City Blue Blowers.  They rather playfully perform in these two 1929 videos: 

Joe’s enlistment in the Army — whether in 1905 or 1906 is irrelevant for present purposes — naturally made clear his intention to leave St. Louis.  Of course, that alone would not necessarily have affected Sam’s plans; however, the latter’s decision to also leave St. Louis is demonstrated by the fact that he had moved to Dallas, Texas, by 1906.  For it was there that he became a U.S. citizen — he was naturalized at the U.S. District Court in Dallas on 14 June 1906.  (In so doing, by the way, he anticipated Joe’s naturalization by six years.)  In short, the brothers had separately left St. Louis by 1906 at the latest.

Before resuming the Joe Rice story, an outline of what little is known of the rest of Sam Rice’s history is in order.  After leaving Texas, Sam turned up in Butte, Montana, where in 1912 he married Salina Leese, a 19-year-old who was born in Russia.  From there they moved to Seattle, Washington, by 1913.  In 1915 they moved to San Francisco, where he was employed as a bookbinder, according to a 1918 document.  Evidence of another major move does not come until 1924.

In a 1924 passport application, Sam stated that he had lived continuously in the U.S. since he had arrived in 1901; that he intended to travel to Japan, China, and the Philippines (where Joe lived by then); and that he would return to the U.S. within one year.  Not long after he had returned, he and his wife were divorced.  A 1950 document, when Sam was 69, indicated that he was still a divorcé and still a bookbinder (and also, by the way, that he stood 5’4” and that he had earned all of $3,900 in 1949).  The date of his death is unknown; as noted earlier, probably it was in the 1950s.  (Sam will be heard from again, below.) 

C. From the U.S. to China

To recapitulate, Joe Rice arrived in the U.S. in 1904, traveled to St. Louis to visit his brother and to attend the St. Louis Fair, and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1906.  He reenlisted in 1909, and spent the entire 1906-1912 period in one location.  According to his 1915 passport application (more on that at the appropriate time), during those years he was a resident of Indianapolis, Indiana (where he was probably stationed at the nearby Fort Benjamin Harrison).  It was during that period that he was naturalized at Brooklyn, New York, on 28 May 1912.  Then, being an American citizen who had adapted well to life in the American military (and earlier in the French Foreign Legion), Rice decided to remain in the Army — a decision that served to end his placid life in Indiana.      

Following Rice’s reenlistment in 1912, the Army decided to transfer him from the 10th Infantry Regiment to the 15th Infantry Regiment.  At the same time, developments in China began to enter the picture.  For, in what was undoubtedly the single most consequential event of Rice’s life, in 1912 the Army began the process of redeploying the 15th Infantry Regiment to China, where it had served briefly in the past.  And by 1913 the 15th had been fully deployed to Tientsin (now Tianjin), China.  At this point, therefore, it would be useful to briefly survey the history of the 15th, in order to help explain why American troops were sent to China in the first place — especially as that was at a time when U.S. forces were not scattered throughout the world, as has been the case since the U.S. entered WWII.   

The 15th Infantry Regiment was an unusually appropriate (though of course unplanned) placement for Joe Rice.  The history of the 15th has been colorfully rendered by one of its former members; in his book the author notes that there were several foreign-born ex-soldiers in the 15th, which some thus called America’s Foreign Legion (an appellation that may well have pleased Rice).  While the original 15th Infantry Regiment dates to 1798, its official history begins in 1861 with the Civil War.  Much of its tradition, however, stems from the fact that it spent some 26 years in China, 1912-1938.  During that period, the ranks of the 15th included an amazing number of future outstanding U.S. Army generals, including George C. Marshall (1924-1927 commander of the 15th), Joseph W. Stillwell, and Matthew B. Ridgeway.  [Finney, passim] 

It can be said, therefore, that, “In the main, the history of the 15th in China corresponded with Chinese history from 1900 on, though with a gap in the first decade.”  Turning to that China context, the first major Western intervention in China dates to the 1838 Opium War, and such interventions subsequently increased during the 19th century.  In 1900 the 15th Regiment carried out a brief “protective” post-Boxer Rebellion mission in Tientsin.  Later the 15th began to return there, starting with only one battalion in early 1912 and and another battalion at the end of 1912.  [Cornebise, 21, 27-28]  

By 1913 the 15th was fully stationed in Tientsin “as part of a multinational colonial effort designed to protect Western civilians”; and it continued to serve as protection for Western interests from the various warlord armies that roamed China.  [Wikipedia (c), n.p.]  The end of the 15th’s presence in China resulted from the “emergence and dominance of the Japanese in much of East Asia by the early 1930s”; thus, to avoid a potential clash, the 15th was withdrawn in 1938, “leaving China and Japan to fight it out until Pearl Harbor effectively forced American intervention once again.”  [Cornebise, 22]  

SIDEBAR.  It can be plausibly argued that Pearl Harbor was the virtually inevitable consequence of the Spanish-American War, which led to U.S. acquisition of the Philippines.  Now note the following sequence of events — and this is not merely coincidence.  The U.S. took over the Philippines in 1898, and the 15th Regiment was first sent to Tientsin in 1900.  The latter likely could not and would not have occurred without the former.  In other words, acquisition of the Philippines embroiled the U.S. in Asian affairs and eventually helped lead to WWII in the Pacific (though of course presumably that might have happened anyway).  

While it could be argued that subsequent U.S. ventures to China might, or even would, have taken place, that is speculation; what did happen is fact.  Nonetheless, it is always fun to speculate about alternative history; and one distinct (but usually overlooked) possibility is what might have happened if the anti-imperialists in the U.S. had prevailed.  (One such anti-imperialist, a founding member of the Anti-Imperialist League in 1898, was Maine Senator Eugene Hale.  [E.g., see Meadows (f), passim] )

Had the U.S. not acquired the Philippines, Germany might well have done so, given the German interest in the entire region, including the Philippines.  That was manifested by various interactions between Germany and Spain in the latter half of the 1800s, starting even before German unification and its emergence as yet another Western imperialist nation.  [E.g., see Weston] 

[Note.  It is also worth citing the eventual results of Western interventions in China.  As “one Chinese official prophetically observed”, in effect the West would come to regret the consequences of an awakened China, with its many grudges to pay off.  [Cornebise, 26]  In time, doing precisely that became an objective of the Chinese Communist Party after it took power in 1949.] 

D. The China years

And now back to Joe Rice.  After some two years in Tientsin, in February 1915 Rice filed an “Emergency Passport Application” with the American Consulate General in Tientsin, for submission to the American Legation at Peking (now Beijing).  The nature of the “emergency” (if any) is unknown; probably the word was used just to accelerate processing of the application.  Even if so, the reason for urgency on that score is unknown as well, especially as Rice declared that he sought the passport simply for the purpose of “travel in China and Japan.”  

In connection with Rice’s extensive travels (starting with his early move to Algeria), one notable fact is well worth pointing out.  Thanks largely to those travels, Rice learned to speak several languages.  In addition to Hebrew, Hungarian and German (and of course English), those are said to have included Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, and French (the latter presumably via his Foreign Legion years).  [Mills, 6]  Also noteworthy is that his linguistic ability later influenced his Army postings, as discussed below.  

Now to return to the 1915 passport application.  On the one hand it is quite helpful, in that it accounts for Rice’s post-St. Louis period in Indiana, as fully covered earlier.  On the other hand, however, that document also serves to muddy the waters.  Certain statements in the application, when compared with those in the 1963 S&S interview and also with factual evidence, cause confusion rather than clarity on several issues.  That will be shown after dealing with a possible excuse for such issues.   

It is true that some of the issues can be downplayed or simply ignored as minor, perhaps attributable to the harmless and understandable memory lapses of an octogenarian and/or to an interviewer’s errors.  An example of that is Rice’s claim in the 1915 application that he left the U.S. in December 1912, whereas the 1963 interview asserts that, “In 1911 he was assigned to the Philippines where he ‘fell in love’ with the country.”  [Mills, 6]  That claim is easy enough to dismiss; even Rice himself contradicts it in his passport application (as do other sources).  Nevertheless, it is just not possible to reconcile two other major discrepancies, which are reviewed next.   

The first one is between the aforesaid 1904 ship’s manifest documenting Rice’s arrival in the U.S., and his claim on the 1915 passport application that in May 1906 he had “emigrated to the United States, sailing on board the Graf Waldersee from Hamburg, Germany”.  But Joe Rice was still in St. Louis in August 1905 (when he wrote the note about his deceased parents); thus to accept his 1906 arrival claim would require believing that he left for Europe no earlier than August 1905 and returned to the U.S. in May 1906.  There is no credible reason for — let alone any evidence of — such a trip (e.g., he had no family to visit).  Fortunately, Rice’s claim provides verifiable details — and Graf Waldersee manifests for 1906 disprove his claim.  There is no obvious explanation for that untruth; however, one purely speculative reason is that Rice may have wanted to conceal his 1904 arrival because of some kind of issue with the immigration laws then in effect.  

The other major discrepancy is between (a) Rice’s contention in his 1915 passport application that he had left the U.S. at the end of 1912, and had lived “In the Philippine Islands from 1913 to 1914,” and (b) indisputable evidence that after his 1912 re-enlistment he was sent to China with the 15th Infantry Regiment.  Now it is true that elements of the 15th Infantry Regiment were sent to the Philippines as well as to China in 1912 and 1913.  So in theory there is a slight chance that Rice might have been in one of the Philippine battalions.  However, there are at least two major factors that serve to refute any such possibility.

The first one, interestingly, brings Rice’s brother back into the picture.  This time Sam Rice turns up in Seattle, Washington, in 1913.  Presumably Sam and his wife had moved there from Butte, where (as noted earlier) they were married in 1912.  Evidently Sam had kept in touch with Joe after both had left St. Louis; that is shown by a postcard (from the Dorothy Rice collection) that he mailed from Seattle, dated 9 November 1913.  Its relevance here is that the postcard is addressed to “Sergeant Joseph Rice, 15th Inft Reg., American Expedition, Tientsin, China, c/o American Consul.”  It is clear, therefore, that Joe Rice had been stationed in China with the 15th Infantry Regiment at least at some point after 1912, and thus that he could not have lived in the Philippines during all of 1913-1914, as he claimed.   

[Note.  At the top of the card is Sam’s address — “Sender:  S. Rice.  Gen. Del.   Seattle, Wash.  U.S.A.”  On the other side of the postcard is a photo of Sam’s son, then almost 11 months old.  There is one other postcard from Sam to Joe in the Dorothy Rice collection.  Addresses are not visible, but undoubtedly it was mailed in 1918 from San Francisco, where Sam and his wife had moved in 1915.  This card has a photo of Sam’s son, who was named Joseph; sadly he had died at the age of six in the 1918 flu epidemic.  The card’s only message is, “To my dear brother Joseph   From his true and faithful brother Sam.  4-14-1918”.  Most likely Joe was in the Philippines by then, as discussed below.] 

E. Marital developments

Next we turn to the second and far more conclusive factor disproving Joe Rice’s claim of 1913-1914 Philippine residence.  All records agree that he married a young Chinese woman in the city of Tientsin, China, but the date of the marriage poses a question.  Rice family records cite the date as 1912, but that conflicts with Rice’s (correct) statement on his passport application that he left the U.S. in December 1912.  Since obviously Rice could not possibly have married a Chinese woman in the U.S. in 1912 (due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882), that raises the question of whether this discrepancy should just be ignored, or whether it can be resolved.  

The answer is the latter, thanks to the testimony of Rice’s Chinese wife.  Living in San Francisco some three decades later (more on that below), she furnished information about herself in a Petition of Naturalization filed in San Francisco on 24 November 1944.  In that document she states that she married Joseph Rice in Tientsin on 10 November 1913.  That date achieves two important objectives — it resolves the issue of when Rice got married, and it also provides irrefutable evidence that Rice did not live in the Philippines during 1913-1914.  (So does the fact that, as noted later, his first child was born in Tientsin in 1914.)  

The preceding extended coverage raises both substantive and procedural questions.  The substantive question is unanswerable — namely, why did Rice make such easily refuted claims on his 1915 passport application?  The procedural question is, whose online records are more reliable — those of Joe Rice or those of Esther Rice?  Given the various issues discussed earlier, and since there is no reason to doubt Esther Rice’s veracity, clearly the verdict should be in her favor.  

[Note.  That procedural decision has a minor substantive consequence: it creates a few slight differences, mainly chronological, between Rice family records and the version presented herein — e.g., when Joe Rice got married, Esther’s age at marriage, etc.). 

As for Esther Rice herself, what little is known about her is based on Rice family records and her cited 1944 Naturalization Petition.  According to that document, she was born in Shanghai on 26 December 1899, just short of a new century.  (She died in San Francisco in 1965.)  Only her family name of Chin is known; Joe Rice named her Esther, and henceforth she was known as Esther Rice.    

Esther Rice was a small woman; as of 1944 she described herself as being five feet tall and weighing 120 pounds.  Her listed employment was “coffee packer,” though it is known that she also held other jobs to support her family.  According to the dates on the 1944 Petition, Esther was more than a month short of her 14th birthday (12/1899-11/1913) when she married Rice, who had just turned 31.  As Dorothy Rice has put it, she “was less than half his age and size” [Rice (a), n.p.].  

The context that enhanced the possibility of a Rice-Chin meeting should receive attention.  For Rice, that context was largely provided by the 15th Infantry Regiment.  Like the other Western nations in China, the U.S. was regarded by Chinese as just another colonial power; however, there was “some enlightenment” on the part of the leadership of the 15th.  “For instance, there was an effort at the regiment’s command levels to foster an appreciation for things Chinese” [Cornebise, 3].  Perhaps Rice did not need such encouragement, but it might have been an influence on him.   

A much more important factor was the difference in quarters between U.S. forces and the forces of other Western nations, including those of Britain, France, Germany and Russia.  The latter were housed in nationally-separate areas known as concessions, whereas “the Americans were housed in various buildings around town until after 1917”; obviously that further promoted “integration” into the Chinese scene.  [Cornebise, 15]  Such integration was not uncommon among troops of the 15th; in fact, those with Chinese wives or other female companions were known as “squaw men.”  [Finney, n.p.] 

The general background of the initial Rice-Chin encounter having been sketched, we turn to its specifics.  To begin with, Joe Rice himself said little or nothing about Esther; for instance, she is not mentioned in his 1963 S&S interview.  How Rice happened to meet his future wife is known only through Rice family lore; and that is thanks almost entirely to Dorothy Rice.  In turn, she is a beneficiary of her mother June Rice’s memories of her own mother (Dorothy’s grandmother), Esther Rice.     

SIDEBAR. Given the import of June Rice’s memories, it would be desirable to verify their credibility, if possible. Ideally, that should be done later, following coverage of Joe Rice’s three children — because June was the (first) wife of Joe Rice’s third child, his Manila-born son Joseph F. Rice, future father of Dorothy. But rather than wait, following are two reasons for the plausibility — because of the sources — of June’s memories of Esther.

According to Dorothy Rice, when June’s husband was overseas during WWII, June and Esther often kept each other company; this enabled the former to hear at first hand about the latter’s background. Additionally, Joe Rice’s first child, Ruth, shared her own childhood memories with June at family gatherings. [Rice, personal email, 15 November 2025]

Based on her mother’s recall, Dorothy Rice, in a compelling recollection of her grandmother, weaves a brilliantly imaginative account of how Joe Rice might have “acquired” his Chinese wife — as she tells it, he quite literally swept her off her (bound) feet. Per that account, Joe Rice was on horseback when he stopped to chat with a young Chinese girl watching the street scene from a window in her home. Rice coaxed her to join him, lifted her from the windowsill onto his horse, and rode off. And here is Esther’s version, as told to Dorothy Rice’s mother, June, and recounted by Dorothy.

“Esther told my mother she’d been a disobedient daughter, her father’s indulgent favorite. She confessed . . . to ripping the bindings from her feet as soon as her maid’s back was turned. The story of the handsome, foreign soldier at the windowsill comes from Esther, via my mother. Mom once said she imagined [Esther] getting on his horse was an impulsive prank, one from which there was no going back . . . . Whether out a window or through the door, whether with or without her own or her father’s consent, on horseback or by some more prosaic means of transport, [Esther] left her home and family with a man in uniform, a white man [more than] twice her age.” [Rice (a), n.p.; ellipses added]

F. From China to the Philippines

Owing to the various conflicting aspects of the Joe Rice story, some of the preceding material has been somewhat tangled, possibly confusing, and rather detailed in spots.  It might be helpful, therefore, to compress all that material into a brief review presenting the most plausible account of Rice’s post-Foreign Legion history, as best as it can be traced.  

Joe Rice, discharged from the French Foreign Legion in 1904, then immigrated to the U.S., intending to visit his brother Sam in St. Louis, as well as that city’s Exposition/World’s Fair.  There he was inspired to join the U.S. Army, in which he served during the rest of his U.S. residency, until the end of 1912.  Evidence for that, aside from his own statements, is provided by an official Army Register of Enlistments.  It discloses that the men whom it lists, including Rice, all served from January 1909 to January 1912; and that Rice himself had reenlisted at the age of 26 at Slocum, N.Y.  Then, as already discussed, Rice reenlisted in 1912, was transferred to the 15th Infantry Regiment, and was sent to China.

[Note.  The 1912 Register includes other details about Rice — that his (Army) occupation was “bookkeeper”; that he stood 5’5”; that he was discharged in January 1912 at Fort Clark in Texas; and (in the “Remarks” column) that he had been commended for “Excellent service” as a private first class in the 10th Infantry Regiment, as well as for “Exceptional h&f” — Army shorthand for “healthy and fit”.]  

From 1913 on, the Joe Rice story remains beset by complications.  Around one year after Rice’s 1913 marriage to Esther, their first child, named Ruth, was born in Tientsin in December 1914, about two weeks before Esther’s 15th birthday.  By that time WWI was well underway in Europe; however, the U.S. did not enter the war until 1917.  Meanwhile, their second child, named David, also was born in Tientsin, in December 1916.  So far so good — but then we come to their third child, named Joseph.  (He was not Joseph Junior; his middle name was Flavius, which perhaps was derived from the Romanized name of the Jewish historian and leader Flavius Josephus, who wrote The Jewish War, among many other achievements.)  

The younger Joseph was born in December 1918 — not in Tientsin but in Manila, Philippines.  (Ancestry erroneously claims he was born in Beijing.)  By then the U.S. had entered WWI, but the 15th Regiment remained in China.  Thus Rice was free to move his family to the Philippines before Joseph’s birth.  But there is no accessible evidence as to when or how the Rice family traveled from Tientsin to Manila.

 
To further muddy the waters, Rice, as indicated earlier, had filed an “Emergency Passport Application” in Tientsin in 1915, supposedly for travel in China and Japan, with no mention of the Philippines.  That document further stated that Rice intended to return to the U.S. within “three years.”  And on top of that, the 1963 S&S interview poses additional issues, examined next.

That 1963 interview, as previously noted, makes no mention of Rice’s wife — or of any of the rest of his family, for that matter.  Of the period in question — from the 1915 passport application to the birth of Joseph in 1918 — the only travel-related passage in the interview states that Rice “traveled with the U.S. Expeditionary Forces to Siberia, China and Japan” (where, as pointed out earlier, he “quickly learned the language[s] of those countries”).  [Mills, 6]  Given those quotations, it would be interesting to know whether Rice was involved in what is known as the Siberian Intervention (1918-1922).  

Summarizing that episode very briefly, U.S. and other Entente forces were sent to Siberia to support the White Russian opposition to the new Bolshevik government, which had pulled out of the war against Germany in 1917.  [See Wikipedia (d)]  The U.S. segment was known as the “American Expeditionary Force, Siberia”; and the S&S interview, to repeat, states that Rice traveled to Siberia “with the U.S. Expeditionary Forces”.  Those two terms are similar, but otherwise the interview sheds no light on whether Rice participated briefly in the Siberian Intervention or simply traveled to Siberia on his own.  Thus all that can be assumed is that, whether in the Army or on his own, Rice traveled extensively during the period starting in 1915.  

If so, that raises the question of how Rice’s family fared in his absence(s).  Furthermore, as already noted, there is no information as to when or how he and his family moved to Manila prior to the birth of his third child in 1918.  Presumably the move came with Rice present; evidence of that would seem to be that Joseph was born in December 1918, which would appear to signify that Rice was in Tientsin in early 1918, and thus presumably also in Manila with his family later that year.  That indicates that Rice likely was not part of the Siberian Intervention.  But — and here we go again — even this chronology is thrown into question by what comes next.

G. The WWI years 

Even after the transfer of Rice and his family to the Philippines, Rice’s Army service continued to affect his family life.  This time the reason was the U.S. entry into WWI in April 1917.  As noted, the 15th Infantry Regiment was not sent to Europe during that war; it was retained in China to continue to protect Western interests. 

But that did not apply to Rice; according to the 1963 S&S interview, Rice’s “multilingual ability earned him a commission as a first lieutenant when the U.S. entered World War I.  He was sent to California to open the Army School of Languages at what was [then] Fort Ord.”  And after that, he was put in charge of 1,000 draftees who, said Rice, “became the famed Lost Battalion of World War I.”  [Mills, 6]  

Now, if the account in the S&S interview is literally correct, it makes it extremely difficult to devise a new logical chronology tracking Rice’s Army postings.  The U.S. entered WWI in April 1917; Rice’s son Joseph was born in December 1918.  Thus, if Rice was sent to California “when the U.S. entered” WWI, it is necessary to assume that either (a) he was not sent until, say, sometime in March 1918, rather than in 1917 when he was still in Tientsin; or, improbably, (b) he was sent in 1917 but was granted a brief return by early 1918 to help with his family’s move to Manila.  But even that is not the end of the matter.  

Yet another factor to consider is that Rice would have had to be (back?) in California by sometime in March 1918, in order first to open the Army School of Languages, and second to then have time to train the draftees who “became the famed Lost Battalion” (per S&S).  That hypothetical schedule might well have been necessary because the Lost Battalion received its name as a result of action in the Argonne Forest in France in October 1918.  [See Wikipedia (f)].  That would have made for a very tight and intense, though not impossible, schedule for Rice (or for anyone else). 

Whatever the case may have been, in order to calculate a reasonable chronology it is necessary to take into account the fact that Rice’s third child was born in December 1918.  Thus it seems that the least complicated (though not necessarily the correct) approach is to assume that Rice did indeed arrive in California sometime in March 1918 (either for the first or the second time).  And in order to greatly simplify matters, it could be assumed that Rice, in his S&S interview, may not have been accurate in recounting, or may have been exaggerating, his Army accomplishments during WWI.  At any rate, one thing is perfectly clear — after WWI ended, Rice was neither kept in California, nor sent back to China.

H. The interwar years

Although the S&S interview does not provide dates on Rice’s travels between the Philippines and California, it does state that by 1920 the following events had transpired — Rice had returned to the Philippines, had resigned from the Army, and had bought a farm outside of Manila. Thus we can resume Rice’s story at that point, this time with no major issues to deal with — on the contrary, with assurance as to its basic outlines, chronological and otherwise (along with my first personal encounters with Rice). 

Rice’s new farm did well after his return, but he eventually became “homesick for Army life” and enlisted once again, in 1925.  And then finally, to complete the history of his regular-Army career, Rice “retired a warrant officer 10 years later and returned to his farm.”  [Mills, 6]  My informed hunch (for reasons that will become evident) is that, during that 1925-1935 span, Rice undoubtedly was stationed in the Manila area and thus was able to live at his farm; as a result, there were no more intervals away from his family.

It was in the period following Rice’s retirement from the Army in 1935 that my parents and I began to go on highly enjoyable occasional Sunday outings to his farm.  Had I been more perceptive — perhaps inquisitive is a better word — I might have asked, or at least wondered, about the close friendship between Rice and my parents that became evident to me at that time.  I did not realize it then, but those ties were a reflection of the fact that the Rice and the Meadows families had been close friends ever since my (future) parents separately arrived on the Manila scene in 1928.  

In light of my very early recollections of the Konigsberg family (as described in Appendix B), it is not unreasonable to think that I should also have early (pre-1935) memories of the Rice family.  The reason that I do not, and that I was unaware in the pre-WWII period of any Rice-Meadows family ties, is easy to explain.  First of all, I simply did not know anything at all about the existence of Rice’s wife Esther and their three children.  In other words, obviously I could not know about ties between our two families if I knew nothing about one of the families to begin with.  

And second, the reason I did not know about Rice’s family is equally easy to explain.  For, whether on her own and/or Joe Rice’s initiative, Esther Rice and two children, Ruth and Joseph, had departed from the Philippines for good in July 1933, bound for San Francisco.  (Their middle child, David, had remained with his father, so that he could finish his last year of high school in Manila; he too had left for the U.S. by the time we began visiting the farm.)  And a final related point — because I did not know about Rice’s family, I had no reason to wonder why they were absent whenever we visited the farm.  

SIDEBAR. This is an appropriate place at which to conclude the story of Esther Rice (1899-1965), as based largely on the writings of her granddaughter, Dorothy Rice. When Esther and two of her children left the Philippines in July 1933, thanks to Rice’s Army service they traveled to the U.S. on the military transport ship USAT U.S. Grant. Moreover, despite the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Esther Rice was able to enter the U.S.; as Dorothy Rice states, Joe Rice’s “military rank must have afforded Esther status.” Whatever the reason, she and her children also were able to live in San Francisco proper rather than in that city’s Chinatown district. [Rice (a), n.p.]

Unlike at least some of her children (including Ruth), Esther herself never returned to the Philippines. According to Dorothy Rice, however, Esther and Ruth apparently traveled to China later in the 1930s. [Rice, personal email, 15 November 2025] Clearly the reason would have been to visit Esther’s family. But aside from any such venture, Esther spent the rest of her life in the San Francisco area, where for some time she worked at several jobs to provide for her family. And in time, happily for her, a number of her children and grandchildren continued to live near her in the Bay area. [Rice (a), n.p.]

Because presumably Rice caused Esther to leave the Philippines and fend for herself and her three children, it would be logical to assume her antipathy toward him. Apparently, however, she chose to follow the silent treatment, in that she did not openly express her feelings about him. [Rice (a), n.p.] Esther’s hands-off position on the subject appears to be reflected in the fact that, in her 1944 Petition for Naturalization, she answered several questions about her husband with “unknown”, and she listed his address as “missing in P. I.”
[Note. One other matter relating to that Petition is worth pointing out — whether the two events were coincidental or not, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943, and the very next year Esther Rice sought, and attained, U.S. citizenship.]

There is no better way to close the story of Esther Rice than by quoting the conclusion of Dorothy Rice’s moving retrospective of her grandmother.

“Esther left . . . so far as I know, no words of her own. Here are some of mine. Strong. Brave. Resilient. Beautiful. I want to believe they are true. That there was once a willful Tianjin [i.e., Tientsin] daughter who left her father’s house with a dashing soldier, anticipating love, adventure, freedom, a new life, and, at least for a time, finding it. . . .
There is no one left who can say it isn’t so.” [Rice (a), n.p.; ellipses added]

I first learned about Rice’s family, and thus also about the ties between our two families, in the early 1950s, when I twice visited my parents in Manila.  On each occasion we once again visited Rice’s farm (and by then I had a camera to record the occasions).  That is when I finally began to learn some Rice-Meadows history.  Oddly, though, I did not become fully aware of the extent of our families’ ties until the next century, as the result of an unexpected discovery.  To fully explain that development, as well as to provide context for understanding our family ties, a review of their history is necessary.  But because of its length and its only indirect relevance to the Joe Rice story, that review is provided in Appendix C.

Appendix C

Thanks to that unexpected 21st-century discovery, I learned that the Rice-Meadows ties had begun sooner, and had been much closer, than I had long believed.  The families had become close friends soon after my future parents appeared on the Manila scene in 1928 and “became an item,” as the saying goes.  I never asked how Rice and my father first met, but I think that happened because both were in the U.S. Army at the time, and they likely connected at an Army facility; also possible is that they met at the Army and Navy Club.  (That they did meet supports my belief, noted earlier, that Rice remained in the Manila area after his 1925 Army reenlistment.)

My conclusion about the families’ close friendship is based on both deduction and induction.  The former is based on inference from the age factor, while the latter is based on factual evidence — and they will be discussed in that order.  Both methods are outgrowths of my 21st-century find; and in turn that find derives, not so incidentally, from no less than one of the principals in the Joe Rice story.  That is none other than his first child, Ruth (1914-2010).  

The deductive approach starts with the fact that both my mother and Ruth were mere teen-agers when they first met, most likely in early 1929, if not earlier — when they would have been 19 and 14 (possibly even 18 and 13), respectively.  (And by the way, Esther Rice’s youthfulness should not be overlooked either; she was only 28-29 at that time.)  Thus, inferring/deducing from the age factor, it seems to me only natural for two (or three) perhaps relatively isolated young women to have been drawn to each other — and particularly so within a male-centric environment, both Filipino and American.    

The inductive approach rests on what I regard as clinching factual evidence.  The source of that evidence is direct (snail mail) testimony from Ruth Rice herself — or rather, from Ruth Rice Goodyear, her married name.   But before discussing that evidence, I should explain — if only for the record — how I discovered it, and why I did not do so until the 21st century. 

Some time after my mother died in 2001, I got around to cleaning out her accumulated records and papers.  My most interesting find was a series of letters from Ruth Rice Goodyear.  Their number and their content revealed the existence of a long correspondence between them.  But, not realizing what a treasure trove of information this was, and in pre-computer days not yet having become interested in my own family’s history, I ingeniously disposed of the letters.  (That was yet another in a series of inexcusable and inexplicable blunders that I have long lamented, all relating to my failure to pursue and to preserve sources of family history.) 

Fortuitously, however, I had retained Ruth’s California address, as I discovered several years later when I finally began my family-history search (having at last entered the computer age).  I then sent Ruth a snail-mail letter, hoping that it would reach her and that she would be kind enough to reply.  Not only did my letter achieve both goals, but in her letter Ruth sounded happy to have heard from me.  (But surely not as happy as I was to have heard from her.)

In her reply Ruth unexpectedly pointed out something I have never forgotten.  Her words seared themselves into my memory:  “You were the first baby I ever held.”  This is the aforementioned clinching evidence — I was the first baby she had ever held.  To me, that is explicit factual proof of a close friendship between Ruth and my mother — and therefore, by implication, between our two families.  In short, Ruth’s letters to my mother, and then her letter to me, led me to conclude that our two families had been far more than casual friends, to say the least.  

Elated by Ruth’s letter, I quickly replied.  After a lengthy anxious wait, I received a brief letter (I do not recall from whom) informing me that Ruth had passed away.  My deep sadness at the news was followed by dismayed recognition that once again I had blundered — this time by having failed to get in touch with Ruth several years earlier, when I first found her letters to my mother.  But I slogged on, and fortunately I eventually contacted Ruth’s niece (Joe Rice’s granddaughter), Dorothy Rice, source of the invaluable material cited herein.

[End of Appendix C]

And now back to the subject of our pre-WWII Sunday visits to the Joe Rice farm.  It was located in the town of Marilao in Bulacan province, north of and not far from Manila — perhaps an hour’s drive from our place in the Malate district (by that time).  During our visits in the early 1940s, I noticed the presence of a cute little girl whom Rice called Miriam (later I learned that she was born in 1938).  My uninformed assumption — as noted, I was not inquisitive — was that Miriam was the daughter of a young woman who I assumed was the housekeeper.  I do not remember her name, but I do recall that she prepared and served delicious meals; otherwise she never mingled with the guests, whereas Miriam occasionally did so.  It was not until my aforementioned 1950s visits to Manila that I learned what my parents had always known — Miriam was Joe Rice’s daughter.  

Now to survey Joe Rice’s interwar activities.  In addition to managing his farm, he kept busy with other matters.  When he retired from the Army in 1935 he was still only in his early 50s; and, with his family gone, apparently the farm was not enough to occupy his time.  He began to engage in several other ventures, as I discovered when I checked the online volumes of the Manila City (telephone) Directory.  As expected, I found no Joe Rice listings in the 1920s.  The earliest accessible Directory in which I found relevant entries was that for 1933-1934.  The Manila section lists Rice only at “r[esidence]. 710 Nebraska, Ermita”; but the short Baguio section at the end contains an eye-opening entry.  

Although presumably he was still in the Army, Rice is listed there as “wholesale merchant, Golf River Mining Assoc., representative, Macondray & co., r. Cariño st.”  The next accessible online Directory, that for 1937-1938, no longer lists Rice in the Manila section; the Baguio section lists him as “wholesale merchant, rep., Macondray & co., r. Cariño st.”  And finally, the 1941 Directory (the first one covering only one year) lists him as “wholesale merchant, Lacson bldg., Harrison st., r. Cariño st.”  Evidently Rice commuted regularly between Baguio and Manila (the road distance between the two cities today is about 155 miles, or 250 km).   

[Note.  It is entirely irrelevant but interesting that the early Manila phone books, both before and after 1900, are titled as follows:  “Rosenstock’s Directory of China and Manila – [year] –  including Hongkong, Manila, Shanghai, Tientsin, Peking, Chefoo and Canton.”  Seven cities — clearly, telephones had yet to gain wide usage.  And another irrelevant item — starting at least in 1921, there are frequent listings for Miss Delight Rice as principal, and Charles and Alice Rice as teachers, at the School for Deaf and Blind in Manila (no relation to Joe Rice).]

Of course, knowing that Rice was busy in the 1930s reveals nothing about the nature of his activities.  Initially, however, a general idea of Rice’s work was provided by a brief reference that turned up in an incredibly detailed 2016 book, titled Feeding Manila in Peace and War, 1850-1945.  Its author — a longtime authority both on the Philippines and on Southeast Asia — somehow had unearthed the following information:  “One early Baguio-based [food] dealer was a Hungarian-American army veteran, Joe Rice, who sent huge baskets of cabbages down to Manila and brought up rice from the lowlands; he also encouraged a modest commerce in highland strawberries.”  [Doeppers, 152; and personal email.]  

Shortly thereafter, coincidentally, Cliff Mills discovered a brief sketch about Rice that provided a few more details about his Baguio ventures.  Titled “Joe Rice — Pioneer Businessman”, it can be summarized as follows:  Rice started out on a proverbial shoestring and became a successful entrepreneur.  The complete entry (not entirely accurate on all its statements) is as follows.

“[Rice] came to Baguio after twelve years of service in the U.S. Army as a private first class.  Baguio conditions awakened his business instinct and with a capital of merely a few pesos, he launched a business career by opening a small store.  Later, he engaged in the vegetable business bringing the much needed commodity to Manila.  It was he who originated the baskets in which to ship produce and who initiated the move to develop strawberry growing.  He imported strawberry planting on a large scale.  He engaged in other ventures and, likewise, succeeded — real estate brokerage, and ways known to be civic-minded and charitable especially to the needy.”  [Gutierrez, 134]

I. The WWII years

Rice’s various activities, on his farm and in Baguio, were involuntarily terminated when WWII engulfed the Pacific theater.  After the Nipponese military invaded the Philippines, Rice decided to evade certain captivity (for as a U.S. citizen he was an enemy alien) — though whether he would have been imprisoned in a military or in a civilian camp is unknown.  His actions after the Nipponese invasion are described, much too briefly, in the 1963 S&S interview as follows, also in full.  

• Rice left for the mountain country to escape capture.
• He worked with three other Americans helping organize and advise patriotic guerrilla forces.
• He was commissioned a major in the Luzon Guerrilla Army Forces.
• When U.S. Forces liberated the islands, he became an adviser to senior U.S. Army officials.
• After the war he became chief of a private police force in the Philippines.  He retired from this job in 1961.   [Mills, 6]

[Note:  Two statements in the above quotation from the S&S interview should be clarified.  First, here is a recap of Rice’s Army ranks: He may have retired as a warrant officer, as previously noted, but his rank changed due to his role in the WWII resistance; his Death Certificate says he was a “Retired Captain”, while his gravestone refers to him as “Major Joseph Rice (ret. U.S. Army)”.  Second, the position referred to in the last line of the quotation above probably was that of head of the Manila Harbor Police.]

It is unfortunate that there seem to be no accessible reports providing additional information on Rice’s wartime activities.  Perhaps some day such material will come to light, preferably (but not very likely) via Rice’s missing 450-page magnum opus (which is discussed below).  As an inadequate substitute for such information, I did a bit of research based on two safe assumptions: (a) Rice likely was stationed not too far from his home area — central Luzon in general and the Bulacan area specifically; and (b) because of his age (he turned 60 in 1942), he was not involved in operational activities (i.e., direct military actions against Nipponese targets).  How I used my research to test each assumption is discussed next.  

As to the first assumption — to begin with, note that the islands in general were divided into so-called “Military  Areas” for purposes of organizing guerrilla activities, operational and otherwise.  On a map of the country, one such area on the island of Luzon was called the East Central Luzon Military Area (ECLMA).  As best as I could determine from that map, subsumed within ECLMA (or so I believe) there actually was — fortunately for this assumption — a Bulacan Military Area.  [Villanueva, 38/note 94; 211 (map)]  Of course, Rice was not necessarily stationed there. 

But regardless of where he was stationed on Luzon,  Rice no doubt had the usual basic non-operational (in effect, “desk job”) tasks to perform, such as organizing and coordinating guerrilla activities, providing logistical support, and handling intelligence (i.e., collecting and relaying information).  And with regard to such non-operational or desk jobs, it so happens that Rice might well have been much more useful to the guerrilla cause than was the typical “desk jockey” guerrilla, to coin a phrase.  There were two reasons for that, both stemming from his linguistic abilities, a talent that was noted earlier at more than one point.  

For one thing, though English was widely spoken in the islands, in case the need ever arose to communicate with Filipino guerrillas who did not speak English, Rice spoke fluent Tagalog (the dominant Filipino dialect on the island of Luzon in particular).  Second, and more noteworthy, Rice also spoke Chinese.  That was of at least potential importance because of a little-known fact — “the number of Chinese guerrillas who fought the Japanese [in the Philippines] has been estimated at several thousand”.  They emerged from the roughly 120,000 ethnic Chinese who were in the Philippines in 1941; their ranks were divided into communist and nationalist factions, as was the case on the Chinese mainland; and their involvement in the anti-Nipponese resistance “remains an interesting part of the guerrilla story.”  [Villanueva, 23-24, 216]  

That concludes the focus on Rice as a cog in the guerrilla resistance.  It is safe to say that, whatever his location might have been on Luzon, and even regardless of his age, Rice would have been a desk jockey guerrilla.  For, because of the presence of large numbers of Nipponese troops, “the role of the guerrilla in central Luzon had primarily been [non-operational:] that of organizing forces, gathering intelligence to be sent to MacArthur’s headquarters, and maintaining the morale of the Filipino people.”   On the other hand, “guerrilla organizations in areas where Japanese forces were more thinly spread carried out military attacks against [their] outposts.”  [McGowan, 11]  

SIDEBAR.  As a matter of curiosity, I decided to see what Google AI might produce on the topic of “Joseph Rice in the WWII Philippine resistance”.  This was the response:  “Unfortunately, there is limited information about a ‘Joseph Rice’ specifically in the context of the anti-Japanese resistance in the Philippines during World War II, based on the provided search results”  However, AI then proceeded to present considerable material about “the broader resistance movement”, including mention of several well-known American guerrilla leaders.

We now move from the micro to the macro — from a review of Rice’s likely role in the Luzon guerrilla resistance, to a brief summary of the effects of that resistance on the course of the war in the islands as a whole.  On the latter score, the verdict is clear, as indicated next.

Without the guerrillas, the Philippines campaign would have been much more difficult for Allied forces and would have consumed greater amounts of time, resources, and manpower.
 
Though their contribution is hard to quantify, the guerrillas made the Allied liberation of the islands easier, taking the place of several divisions of American troops and providing intelligence on Japanese forces which made Allied efforts more efficient and effective.  Alongside Yugoslavian forces under Tito and Russian partisans on the Eastern Front, the guerrillas in the Philippines stand as one of the most effective and sophisticated guerrilla movements in World War II.  [Villanueva, 208, 18; see 242, 247 for more detailed summaries.] 

To conclude this section on WWII, it is essential to emphasize the impact of the micro upon the macro — of the ECLMA, where Rice most likely worked, upon the initial American invasion of the Philippines.  For the guerrillas’ primarily non-operational role in the central Luzon area had one very significant indirect operational consequence.  That is because “it was the central Luzon force that caused the most confusion among the Japanese, and whose activities forced them to maintain a large contingent on the island whose presence at Leyte would have made the Allied invasion there much more difficult than it was.”  [McGowan, 11]  

Thus, whatever Rice’s specific role may have been in what undoubtedly was the central Luzon area, I believe we now have as good an estimate of his role as it is possible to produce, in the absence of information that may be contained in actual records and reports, official and/or otherwise.  In any event, it is safe to assume that Rice did his part in the anti-Nipponese resistance during WWII.  And now, on to the post-WWII stage of the Joe Rice story. 

J. The post-WWII years

After WWII Rice returned to his farm and resumed his pre-war life.  During each of two trips to Manila that I made in the early 1950s, my parents and I (as mentioned earlier) again visited Rice at his farm in Bulacan province.  I was happy to find that things were pretty much as I remembered them from the pre-war period.  One exception is that Rice’s daughter Miriam was not present when we visited; in her teens by then, she was occupied elsewhere.  But it seems that she was never far from Rice’s side.  On at least one occasion, for example, she accompanied her father on a trip to the U.S., probably in the late 1950s; during their visit to San Francisco, they stayed at the nearby home of Rice’s son, Joseph.  [Rice (a), n.p.]  

Perhaps the most noteworthy event of Joe Rice’s post-WWII years involved his daughter Miriam.  In 1958 there appeared a Manila Times newspaper article about the forthcoming marriage of “Miss Miriam Rice, a leading socialite in Manila”.  Partially headlined the “Manila Wedding of the Year”, the article stated that Miriam, “daughter of retired U.S. Army Major and Mrs. Joseph Rice, holds the present titles of Miss United Nations and Miss Press Photographer of the Philippines.”  (As explained earlier, Miriam was not the daughter of “Mrs. Joseph Rice,” who had left the Philippines some five years before Miriam was born.  Moreover, there is no public record of Rice having been divorced and/or having remarried.)  

According to the Manila Times article, “Miss Rice, an American, is a graduate of the Philippine Women’s University”; and her future husband, Sanford Glassman, had served four years in the U.S. Air Force.  The wedding, at Manila’s synagogue, “will be featured in the Manila Times and will be used as a cover-to-cover pictorial in that paper’s Sunday Times Magazine.  Life Magazine has also requested permission to carry the event in one of its future issues.”  Among the 1500 guests invited to attend the wedding were the Philippine president, the U.S. ambassador, “and other Philippine and American dignitaries.”  [Manila Times, details unknown; the article, from Ancestry files, is in the Dorothy Rice collection.  The newspaper and magazine titles cited in the quotation were not italicized.]

Not long after her marriage, Miriam and her family moved to Japan, where her husband had been transferred by his employer, a New York electronics corporation.  As a result, Rice, who had retired as Manila Harbor Police chief in 1961, thereupon soon also moved to Japan, to live with the Glassmans and his two grandsons.  [Mills, 6]  (Thus, because Rice had left the Philippines after more than four decades there, my own family — in this case meaning my wife and two daughters — had no opportunity to visit the Rice farm during the 1964-1965 year when I was a Fulbright professor at the University of the Philippines.) 

Joe Rice died at the age of 87 in January 1970, in Japan — specifically, states his Death Certificate, at the “U.S. Army Hospital, Ryukyu Islands . . . (Okinawa, Japan)”.  The cause of death is listed as “coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure”.  His personal effects went to Miriam Rice Glassman, and his remains were shipped to Manila, where he is buried in the Jewish section of the Manila North Cemetery.  

Unfortunately, one of Rice’s valued possessions is unaccounted for.  Its mention evoked my eager anticipation when I learned that, by the time of his 1963 interview, Rice had “recently finished writing a 450-page manuscript on his experiences.”  [Mills, 6]  Later, however, that undoubtedly fascinating document elicited deep frustration because its whereabouts had become a complete mystery.   Presumably Miriam, who was divorced in 1974, would have known about the manuscript, but regrettably she died around 2019.  Miriam’s two sons and their wives — with whom I have had telephone conversations— agree, as does Dorothy Rice, that the manuscript has vanished.  

K. Closure

Before concluding the Joe Rice story, the question posed at the outset of Part IV remains to be answered — namely, how to account for the paucity of Rice’s coverage in Philippine-related publications.  The short answer is that Rice arrived in the Philippines as an unknown quantity, and for the most part remained as such, for (possible) reasons to be advanced below.  

In that respect, and using a limited but instructive basis for comparison, we turn to the other two Memorable.  Doing so shows that Rice’s somewhat reclusive inclinations and non-public/military occupation differed sharply from the natures and the positions of the other two individuals examined herein, Cysner and Konigsberg.   

This is not to say that Rice’s fellow Memorables sought publicity — far from it; and to the extent that they received it, that resulted almost entirely from their respected religious roles.   It is true that Joseph Cysner has received considerable attention, but that has come (a) only in recent years (post-2000), and (b) almost entirely as a result of the efforts of one historian, as was pointed out in Part II.  As for Israel Konigsberg, he arrived in Manila as someone who, like Cysner and unlike Rice, was gregarious and was even sought-after to fill a position within the city’s Jewish community.

In my view, a major reason for Rice’s lack of coverage is that he was basically a loner, at least in the Philippine context.  In other words, he was someone who for the most part did not seem to be a fan of social gatherings; nor did he talk or write about himself, prior to his 1963 S&S interview and his now-vanished masterpiece.  In short, he neither sought nor received attention.  It should be emphasized that this is a purely personal impression; that to explain it requires speculation (following below) based largely on this study; and that of course such speculation is open to question.    

First of all, when Rice arrived in Manila, his lengthy Army background may have inclined him to limit his interactions with others chiefly to the military sector (later including my father, as was noted).  Too, it may be that Rice’s interracial marriage was a factor, whether by choice or not.  It is true such marriages were commonplace among expatriates in the islands, especially among Spanish-American War veterans; however, the fact that Rice’s wife was not a Filipina might have made a difference.  And that factor could have been reinforced by Esther Rice’s likely understandable reticence upon being thrust into a totally foreign environment — one which in turn could have reinforced, and/or been reinforced by, his own reticence.  

Another aspect to consider was Rice’s minimal attendance at Jewish-community services and events.  This may have resulted from the facts that he lived at his farm outside of Manila, and/or that he may have been more privately rather than publicly observant.  That latter possibility is implied in (or is something I inferred from) both the S&S interview (in one of its passages), and his upbringing of Miriam.  And finally, Rice’s reclusive inclinations were demonstrated when, early on, he bought and moved to a farm in the Manila countryside.  

Whether the farm was cause or effect of Rice’s (apparent) reclusiveness is open to question, but in any case his non-military activities were limited mainly to his farm, and later to Baguio as well.  Prior to the 1933 departure of his wife Esther and two children, presumably Rice was occupied with farm and family.  After their departure, his attention shifted to farm-related activities in a setting (Baguio) distant from the Manila scene.  Those activities, which were possibly at least in part compensatory, then began to taper off (judging from his telephone directory listings) after Miriam’s birth in 1938.  

Perhaps the only safe conclusion is simply that Joe Rice was not an overly gregarious individual, and leave it at that.  Whatever the reason(s) might be for his lack of coverage, Rice’s story herein has been completed.  It has been presented last not only because of alphabetical ordering, but also in order to save the best for last.  It is the best of the three unique histories, in my opinion, principally because it is the most interesting — and that is largely because it is so geographically expansive and so complex (not to mention the availability of notable graphics). 

V.  CONCLUSION

Thus ends this narrative of three remarkable individuals, whose inclusion herein reflects the facts expressed in its title and Introduction.  Specifically, all three (a) were mensches (in all senses of the word); (b) had European origins, and yet, without necessarily having planned to do so, (c) happened to become residents of the Philippines, by widely devious routes; and (d) had extremely interesting and unusual histories, in each case encompassing and in effect culminating in the Nipponese occupation of the Philippines during WWII.  As noted at the outset, there is one additional commonality, which I have tried to convince myself is a minor one — but whether it is or not, this work likely would not have been written had I not known all three Memorables more than casually.  

In any event, the intended task has been completed to the fullest extent possible, on the basis of the available factual evidence supplemented at times by personal insights.  However, returning full circle to the Preface elicits a reminder of an imponderable — namely, whether the three Memorables reflected racial, colonial and imperialist perspectives, as revisionists might contend.  As emphasized at the outset, that is an issue well beyond the scope of this lengthy account.  

Regardless of that fact, perhaps this survey may to some extent attain its two stated objectives.  Once again, those are: (a) secondarily, to demonstrate that these three unique records are of more than purely personal interest; and (b) primarily, in so doing, making these records better known to a wider audience than long has been the case.  It is possible (I hope) that helping to rectify that lack of mainstream coverage is not too high a bar to clear.  At present, however, that possibility remains very much an open question. 

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Listing of articles by Prof. Martin Meadows (arranged mainly by date of posting):

• The Ubiquity of Iniquity or STIC’s Lasting Impact by Martin Meadows
• Limerick: 80 years since Liberation Day
• The Ubiquity of Iniquity or STIC’s Lasting Impact
• Book Review: Waiting for America: A Civilian Prisoner of Japan in the Philippines
• My Three Years in a Quandary and How They Passed (in STIC)
• The Smothers Family’s link to Philippines
• A WWII Manila Prison Camp’s Maestro of Mirth
• A Spooky STIC Short Story
• WWII STIC Icon Helps Solve a Mystery
• Tennis Great’s link to the Philippines
• The Bar Mitzvah of a WWII Axis Internee
• The Contrasting Cases of American and Japanese-American World War II Internees
• STIC Signature Songs (and Sources)
• Encounters with STIC Guards
• Santo Tomás Liberation
• A Post-Internment Wrestling Chronicle
• Impressions of an Itinerant Internee: My Varied Lodgings in STIC
• A Little-Known STIC Episode
• The STIC Tissue Issue
• The STIC Tissue Issue, Part II: The Women’s Perspective