Envoy saved thousands from the Nazis
Jewish families given visas needed to escape Holocaust and find haven
A square in Chinatown, Milan, has become the first location in Italy to be dedicated in honor of a Chinese person, Piazzetta Ho Feng Shan being named for the remarkable achievements of a 1930s diplomat.
Ho Feng Shan was the Chinese consul general in Vienna from 1938 to 1940, when the Nazi authorities would only allow Jews to leave if they had a visa to another country.
Consulates were flooded with applications from Jews desperate to escape the Holocaust, but while many countries were unwilling to accept more refugees, Ho saved thousands of lives by issuing visas to Shanghai, allowing Jews safe passage to China, away from the horrors of Europe.
Some applications were even stuffed into his car — but were treated and granted just the same as those by more conventional means.
Ho, born in 1901, obtained his PhD from the University of Munich in 1932 and spent nearly 40 years in the diplomatic service before retiring to San Francisco.
He died in 1997 and, in accordance with his wishes, was later buried in his beloved hometown of Yiyang in Hunan province.
During his lifetime he rarely spoke about his work with refugees. Even in his 700-page memoir Forty Years of My Diplomatic Life, published in 1990, he gave it just the briefest mention.
“Since the Anschluss (when Nazi Germany took over control of Austria), the persecution of Jews by Hitler’s ‘devils’ became increasingly fierce,” he wrote. “I spared no effort in using every means to help, thus saving who knows how many Jews!”
It was only after his death that his daughter Ho Manli, a journalist, began to investigate her father’s past and the stories of the survivors he helped, during which she scoured archives in Washington, Vienna and Israel.
Her inquiries began when she received a telephone call from the curator of a touring photographic exhibit on diplomatic rescuers of Jews. Almost immediately she started uncovering the stories of many survivors, such as Eric Goldstaub, who applied to 50 consulates without any success before Ho came to his rescue, granting 20 visas for his entire family.
Goldstaub took refuge in Shanghai from 1939 to 1948 and never forgot Ho’s help. After the war his story was recorded in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum archives.
His cousin Harry Fiedler still possesses one of the visas Ho issued, serial number 1193, issued on July 20, 1938, four months after the Anschluss. This was Ho Manli’s first indication of the volume of visas her father had helped issue.
In subsequent years many other journalists, scholars and writers have followed in Ho Manli’s footsteps in investigating the story.
Last year a Canadian-American producer, Rene Balcer, directed a documentary, Above the Drowning Sea, which recorded many firstperson accounts of Jewish refugees, and the Chinese residents of Shanghai who became friends with them during World War II.
This year Elisa Giunipero, director of the Confucius Institute at the Catholic University of Milan, published a book on the same topic. She said remembering Ho is crucial for Europeans to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the Holocaust.
“We always think of the Holocaust as European history, but, in fact, it is the history of humankind. What I find really interesting is to look at this history from another perspective.”
As Ho’s story has become better known around the world he has received numerous commendations. In July 2000 Israel bestowed on him the title of Righteous Among the Nations, one of its highest honors. In 2015 the Holocaust Museum of Houston honored Ho with the Lyndon Johnson Moral Courage Award.
Recently a new stone plaque in Ho’s name was unveiled in Monte Stella Park, Milan. Gabriele Nissim, president of the Milan charity Gariwo which organized the memorial, said that in the modern world, now more than ever, it was vital to remember the importance of human kindness as shown by Ho.
The European refugee crisis, said Nissim, with hundreds of thousands fleeing from Asia and Africa, and thousands dying while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea, shows how important Ho’s example was.
“Remembering Ho and other World War II heroes is the process of remembering the possibility of humanity to do kindness and take care of each other,” Nissim said.
“After World War II we thought what happened to the Jews would not happen again, but that is not true. So this day we push young people to take responsibility for what happened in history.”
The naming of Piazzetta Ho Feng Shan came about through a two-year process by the Italian Chinese Entrepreneurs Union. Luca Song, chairman of the group, said the naming of the square meant Ho’s story would continue to inspire generations of Chinese living overseas.
“His humanitarian deeds provide guidance to our conduct, so we must remember him.”