Qian Xiuling

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Qian Xiuling ( Chinese  钱 秀玲 or Siou-Ling Tsien de Perlinghi ; born March 12, 1912 in Yixing , China ; died June 1, 2008 in Belgium ) was a Sino-Belgian chemist who worked in Belgium during the Nazi occupation saved the lives of about 100 people.

Life

Qian Xiuling 1930

Qian Xiuling was born in 1912 in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, into a large and well-connected family who had made some prosperity through the textile trade. Her older cousin, Lieutenant General Qian Zhuolun, was chief of the First General Bureau of the Ministry of Defense of the Kuomintang Administration and chief of staff. Qian was beautiful, athletic and had excellent school results. On the recommendation of her teachers, she went to Europe with her brother and her fiancé in 1929. She studied chemistry at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium and, at the age of 22, became the first woman in Belgium to obtain a doctorate in chemistry.

Wedding of Qian Xiuling and Grégoire de Perlinghi in 1933

In 1933 she married the Belgian medic Grégoire de Perlinghi after she had ended the engagement to her Chinese groom. The couple then moved to Herbeumont in the Ardennes, where their husband established himself as a doctor.

In 1939, a source said she traveled to Paris hoping to work in Marie Curie's laboratory, but the entire facility is said to have been relocated to the United States because of World War II.

In June 1940, her hometown of Herbeumont was occupied by the German army after a Belgian youth blew up a train with a mine buried between the tracks. The youth was sentenced to death. Qian read the name of the German general who was in command in Belgium in a newspaper. She knew General Alexander von Falkenhausen from the time he worked in China as part of the Sino-German cooperation . Falkenhausen was one of Chiang Kai-shek's advisors and had worked closely with Qian's older cousin Lieutenant General Qian Zhuolun . She wrote a letter to Falkenhausen and traveled to Brussels with the boy's parents to Falkenhausen. Falkenhausen then decided to use his authority to release the boy on humanitarian grounds. The story got around among the Belgians, who soon worshiped her as a heroine.

On June 7, 1944, Qian was contacted again after the Germans captured 97 Belgians in order to kill them in revenge for the murder of three Gestapo people in nearby Ecaussinnes . Although she was pregnant with her first child, she traveled to Falkenhausen again and asked him to intervene. He hesitated, but then agreed to release the hostages, knowing he was disobeying an order. The general was ordered to Berlin to declare his insubordination. At the end of the war, Falkenhausen was spared the German court and punishment, but he was arrested for war crimes. He was tried in Belgium in 1951.

Qian spoke in court and pleaded for Falkenhausen's good character. He was sentenced to twelve years for executing hostages and deporting Jews, but was released to Germany after three weeks, where he died in 1966.

legacy

Qian received the recognition medal 1940-1945 ( French Médaille de la Reconnaissance Belge 1940-1945 ) from the Belgian government.

Qian's story was shown in a 16-part series A Chinese Woman in Front of Gestapo Rifles on Chinese television. Before that, Qian had never told her family about her experience.

In 2003, Qian's granddaughter Tatiana de Perlinghi made a documentary called Ma grand-mère, une héroïne? (My grandmother, a heroine?).

In 2005, the Chinese Ambassador to Belgium, Zhang Qiyue, thanked her when he visited her in the old people's home. Qian's husband had died in 1966.

Qian is an honorary citizen of the Ecaussinnes community . There a street called Rue Perlinghi was named in her honor .

A novel by the author Zhang Yawen about Qian with the English title Chinese Woman at Gestapo Gunpoint was published in 2003.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b 中国 女 “辛德勒” 钱 秀玲 曾 营救 近百 比利时人. Sina Corporation, June 9, 2014, accessed August 1, 2017 (Chinese).
  2. ↑ A Story of World War II Heroism Comes Home to China. In: 北京 青年 报 (Beijing Youth Daily). December 11, 2001, accessed August 1, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Décès de Siou-Ling Tsien, qui avait sauvé Ecaussinnes des Nazis. In: 7SUR7.be. August 1, 2008, accessed August 1, 2017 (French).
  4. ↑ Alexander von Falkenhausen , spartacus-educational.com, accessed on April 1, 2015
  5. ↑ A Story of World War II Heroism Comes Home to China . In: China.org.cn . April 2002. Retrieved April 1, 2015.
  6. ↑ Frank Zhao Qian Xiuling: World War II Hero. All China Women's Federation, September 15, 2014, accessed August 2, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Ma grand-mère, une héroïne? ( fr ) RTBF. Retrieved April 2, 2015.
  8. ^ The “Chinese Schindlers”. In: People's Daily Online. July 25, 2005, accessed August 1, 2017 .
  9. ↑ 者 潘 革 平: 访 盖世太保 枪口 下 的 中国 女人 钱 秀玲. In: 搜狐 新闻 中心. May 8, 2005, Retrieved August 2, 2017 (Chinese).
  10. ↑ Liao Liqiang: Map stamps claimsoft over islands. In: chinadaily.com.cn. October 27, 2012, accessed on August 2, 2017 .
  11. ^ Yawen Zhang: A Chinese woman at Gestapo gunpoint . Foreign Languages ​​Press, Beijing 2003, ISBN 7-119-03159-7 (English).
Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Qian is the family name here, Xiuling is the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Qian, Xiuling
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Perlinghi, Siou-Ling Tsien de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Sino-Belgian scientist who saved the lives of around 100 people during the Nazi occupation in Belgium
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH Yixing , China
DATE OF DEATH June 1, 2008