Ho Feng Shan

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Ho Feng Shan
Memorial plaque for Ho Feng Shan in the Jewish Refugee Museum in Shanghai
Memorial plaque for Ho Feng Shan in Vienna, Beethovenplatz

Ho Feng Shan ( Chinese  何鳳山  /  何凤山 , Pinyin Hé Fèngshān ; born September 10, 1901 in Yiyang , Hunan , Empire of China ; † September 28, 1997 in San Francisco ) was a Chinese diplomat . He issued thousands of Jews in Vienna from 1938 to 1940 and in all probability saved their lives. He was referred to as the " Schindler of China".

biography

Ho Feng Shan came from simple farming conditions in the southern Chinese province of Hunan. His father died when he was 7 years old. His school education and the support of the family were then guaranteed by the local Norwegian Lutheran Mission, so that the young Feng Shan was given a solid education in the western tradition, combined with a Confucian ethic. Ho then studied from 1921 to 1925 at Yali University in Changsha - at that time a private university supported by an American foundation. In 1926 Ho received an advanced training scholarship for the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich , where he received his doctorate in economics in 1932 with his thesis on banking in China and its problems .

From 1937 Ho Feng Shan worked for the Chinese consulate in Vienna . After Austria was annexed to Nazi Germany in 1938, Ho began to issue visas for Shanghai for Jewish refugees against the will of his superior, the Chinese ambassador Chen Jie (陳 介) in Berlin . A visa was not required for Shanghai at that time, but Jews were only able to leave the German Reich with proof of emigration. After the original consulate building had been requisitioned as Jewish property by the Nazis and the funds from China to rent a new building were not available, Ho rented the appropriate premises at Johannesgasse 22 in the Inner City district and continued his consular work there until he was recalled left Vienna in May 1940. The number of visas he issued to Shanghai can no longer be precisely determined. However, due to the fact that individual Visa serial numbers had approached 4000, it must have been several thousand.

During his further diplomatic career, he was the ambassador of the Chinese Republic of China to Taiwan in Egypt , Mexico , Bolivia and Colombia . In 1973 he retired and moved to the United States with his children. He also took citizenship of the United States. In 1997, Ho died in San Francisco.

Ho later modestly made no fuss about his rescue operation in the years 1938–1940 and it remained largely unknown for a long time. [1] His daughter only found out about his role at the time after his death while viewing his estate. Regarding his motives at the time, Ho said in his memoirs that the fate of the harassed Jews touched him so much that he simply followed a spontaneous humanitarian impulse and helped.

Honors

In 2001 Ho was posthumously awarded the title “ Righteous Among the Nations ”. This made him the second Chinese citizen after Pan Jun Shun to receive this title. In 2008 the US Senate passed a honorable resolution. In 2015, the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) Ma Ying-jeou honored him posthumously (at the same time John Rabe was honored posthumously). The honor was received by Ho's daughter Manli Ho (何曼禮). On April 21, 2015, a memorial plaque was placed on the building of the former national Chinese consulate (today the Ritz-Carlton-Hotel) in Vienna, commemorating Ho's work.

Works

  • Ho Feng Shan: The Banking System in China and its Problems (Inaugural Dissertation) . Ed .: Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich. 1932 ( digitized ).
  • Ho Feng Shan: 外交 生涯 40 年 ("40 years of diplomatic life ") . The Chinese University Press, 1990, ISBN 978-962-201-435-0 (Chinese).

The English edition of the memoir is a very heavily abridged version published by his son Monto Ho, in which essential parts are probably missing.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ho Feng Shan 1901-1997: the first diplomat who saved Jews by issuing visas for them to let them escape from the Holocaust. Garden of The Righteous Worldwide, accessed March 10, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c 110th Congress (2008): S.Res. 588 (110th). GovTrack.us, June 6, 2008, accessed March 10, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Wayne Chang: Ho Feng Shan: The 'Chinese Schindler' who saved thousands of Jews. CNN, July 24, 2015, accessed March 10, 2018 .
  4. ^ Roland Kaufhold: Dr. Feng Shan Ho. China's "Oskar Schindler" . Ed .: Belltower.news https://www.belltower.news/dr-feng-shan-ho-chinas-oskar-schindler-101057/ . 2nd July 2020.
  5. ^ ROC diplomat posthumously honored for WWII actions. Taiwan Today, September 11, 2015, accessed March 10, 2018 .
  6. ↑ My Forty Years As a Diplomat. Amazon, accessed on March 10, 2018 (see in particular the reader's comment by Manli Ho).
Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Ho is the family name here, Feng Shan is the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Ho, Feng Shan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ho, Feng-Shan (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese diplomat, savior of the Jews
DATE OF BIRTH September 10, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Yiyang , Hunan , Chinese Empire
DATE OF DEATH September 28, 1997
Place of death San Francisco