Chinese visas to Shanghai save thousands of Jews in Austria before WWII

China and Israel on Tuesday unveiled a plaque to commemorate a late Chinese diplomat for his humanitarian efforts on the eve of World War II, at the site of the former Chinese Consulate General in Vienna.

   Dr. Feng Shan Ho, the diplomat sent to Vienna in 1937 and appointed as consul general of China one month after Austria was annexed by Germany in March 1938, tried his best to save Jewish people's lives by issuing them Chinese Visas to Shanghai. After the annexation, the situation of the Jewish community in Vienna was getting worse and further deteriorated after Kristallnacht in November 1938, or the "Night of Broken Glass", when the Nazi-led mob violence took place against Jews. Thousands of Jewish people were forced into concentration camps, and 6 million Jews were killed in the notorious genocide.

   At that time, Shanghai was occupied by Japanese, and any entry visa issued by Chinese officials would not be recognized by Japanese occupiers.

   But the diplomat's daughter, Manli Ho, said his father "fashioned an ingenious way to use the entry visa as a means of exit or escape," as the Nazi Germany just wanted Jews to prove their end destination to let them leave the country.

The commemorative plaque of Ho Feng Shan.  (Xinhua/Qian Yi)

   Therefore, many Jews would be able to escape to many other countries around the world with Shanghai visas.

   But as an increasing number of Jews from Austria and Germany tried to emigrate, they found few countries were willing to allow them to enter. Their plight was exacerbated by the July 13, 1938 resolution of the Evian Conference, which made it evident that nearly none of the 32 participating nations was willing to accept more Jewish refugees, including the United States and Britain.

   With Shanghai being an "end destination", Ho's activity was the key driving force in putting the Chinese port city on the map for Jewish refugees as a refuge of last resort, which required no entry papers.

   As word spread to Germany and other Nazi-occupied territories, some 18,000 European Jews eventually escaped to Shanghai in 1938 and 1939.

   "Yes, that was something very important, because it was an example for other Jewish people to escape to Shanghai," Raimund Fastenbauer, the secretary general of Jewish communities of Austria told Xinhua when asked the role Dr. Ho played in making Shanghai an "end destination" for Jewish people.

   "He is the ultimate human being. We have to just be thankful for China that this great nation can produce a human being like him," Israeli Ambassador to Austria Zvi Heifetz told Xinhua during the commemorative event.

   The number of visas issued between 1938 and 1939 by Dr. Ho is unknown, as he rarely mentioned the thing himself, saying that saving the Jews was natural for a human being.

Chinese Visas to Shanghai issued by Ho Feng Shan. (Owned by Dr. Ho's daughter Ho Manli)

   But based on the serial numbers of the existing visas found, it is clear that thousands of visas were issued, and the only surviving documentation indicated that the Chinese Consulate in Vienna issued an average of 500 visas a month to Jews in the nearly two years after the annexation.

   "Seeing the Jews so doomed," the late Dr. Ho once recalled, "it was only natural to feel deep compassion, and from a humanitarian standpoint, to be impelled to help them."

   "Since the Anschluss (annexation), the persecution of Jews by Hitler's 'devils' became increasingly fierce ... I spared no effort in using any means possible to help, thus saving countless Jews."

   After Dr. Ho's death in 1997, Manli Ho could only trace his father's activities in Vienna from two stories she was told as a kid, and some paragraphs in his father's memoirs.

   In 2000, Israel bestowed the title of Righteous Among the Nations, one of its highest honors, on Dr. Ho "for his humanitarian courage" in the rescue of Jews.