Ho Feng-Shan ( 10 September 1901 – 28 September 1997) was a Chinese diplomat and writer for the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeas ...

.''Garden of The Righteous Worldwide'', Ho Feng Shan 1901 - 1997: the first diplomat who saved Jews by issuing visas for them to let them escape from the Holocaust
/ref> When he was

consul-general A consul is an official representative of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, as well as to facilitate trade and friendship between the people ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, he risked his life and career to save "perhaps tens of thousands" of Jews by issuing them visas, disobeying the instruction of his superiors. It is known that Ho issued the 200th visa in June 1938, signed the 1906th visa on 27 October 1938, and was recalled to China in May 1940. Ho died in 1997 and his actions were recognized posthumously when the

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i organization

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

in 2000 awarded Ho Feng-Shan the title "

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sa ...

Early life

Ho Feng-Shan was born on 10 September 1901 in

Yiyang Yiyang () is a prefecture-level city on the Zi River in Hunan province, China, straddling Lake Dongting and bordering Hubei to the north. According to the 2010 Census, Yiyang has a population of 4,313,084 inhabitants residing in an area of . Th ...

Hunan Province Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to ...

, China. His father died when Ho was seven years old. A diligent and hard-working student, he managed to enter the Yali School in the provincial capital of

Changsha Changsha (; ; ; Changshanese pronunciation: (), Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is the capital and the largest city of Hunan Province of China. Changsha is the 17th most populous city in China with a population of over 10 million, and ...

and later Yale-in-China University. He attended the

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

in 1929 and received his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

in political economics in 1932.

Before World War II

In 1935, Ho started his diplomatic career within the

Foreign Ministry In many countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the government department responsible for the state's diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral relations affairs as well as for providing support for a country's citizens who are abroad. The entit ...

of the

. His first posting was in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

. He was appointed First Secretary at the Chinese

legation A legation was a diplomatic representative office of lower rank than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an ambassador, a legation was headed by a minister. Ambassadors outranked ministers and had precedence at official events. Legations ...

in Vienna in 1937. When Austria was

annexed Annexation (Latin ''ad'', to, and ''nexus'', joining), in international law, is the forcible acquisition of one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. It is generally held to be an illegal act ...

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in 1938, and the legation was turned into a consulate, Ho was assigned the post of

Consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throu ...

-General. After the ''

Kristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation fro ...

'' in 1938, the situation became rapidly more difficult for the almost 200,000 Austrian Jews. The only way for Jews to escape from Nazism was to leave Europe. In order to leave, they had to provide proof of emigration, usually a visa from a foreign nation, or a valid boat ticket. This was difficult, however, because at the 1938

Évian Conference The Évian Conference was convened 6–15 July 1938 at Évian-les-Bains, France, to address the problem of German and Austrian Jewish refugees wishing to flee persecution by Nazi Germany. It was the initiative of United States President Franklin ...

31 countries (out of a total of 32, which included Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) refused to accept Jewish immigrants. The only country willing to accept Jews was the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

, which offered to accept up to 100,000 refugees. Acting against the orders of his superior Chen Jie (), the Chinese ambassador to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

, Ho started to issue transit visas to

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...

, under Japanese occupation except for foreign concessions. Twelve hundred visas were issued by Ho in only the first three months of holding office as Consul-General. At the time it was not necessary to have a visa to enter Shanghai, but the visas allowed the Jews to leave Austria. Many Jewish families left for Shanghai, whence most of them would later leave for

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

. Ho continued to issue these visas until he was ordered to return to China in May 1940. The exact number of visas given by Ho to Jewish refugees is unknown. It is known that Ho issued the 200th visa in June 1938, and signed the 1906th visa on 27 October 1938. How many Jews were saved through his actions is unknown, but given that Ho issued nearly 2,000 visas only during his first half year at his post, the number may be in the thousands.

After the war

After the Communist victory in 1949, Ho followed the Nationalist government to Taiwan. He later served as the ambassador from

Republic of China (Taiwan) Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

to other countries, including to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

, and

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the ...

. After his retirement in 1973, Ho settled in San Francisco, California, where he wrote his memoirs, ''My Forty Years as a Diplomat'' () published in 1990. His son Monto Ho produced an abridged English translation in 2010. After his retirement in 1973, the ROC government denied Ho a pension on the grounds, common then, that he had been subpoenaed and refused to cooperate with Diplomatic Services, and had not properly accounted for a small sum in an embassy expense account. These charges are now widely believed to have been politically motivated. The ROC government has never exonerated him as there were many diplomats leaving their posts without authorization. He did not report to work and he was terminated without a pension. This was the policy when tens of embassies were closed. He returned to Mainland China and visited his alma mater in

for the school's 80th anniversary in 1986. A shadow was cast over his later years by impeachment by Taipei's Committee on the Discipline of Public Functionaries for having allegedly misappropriated funds when he was ambassador to Colombia in 1970, charges which he claimed were concocted by a subordinate he had refused to recommend for promotion. However, on 10 September 2015, President Ma Ying-jeou in Taipei commended Ho for his service and presented his daughter a certificate of appreciation with Israeli government representatives.

Death

Ho Feng-Shan died on 28 September 1997 in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, at the age of 96. He was survived by his son, Monto Ho (何曼德, 1927–2013), a

Chinese-American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from m ...

professional in

microbiology Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, ...

virology Virology is the scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host cells for reproduction, the ...

, and

infectious diseases An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable di ...

; and by his daughter, Manli Ho ().

Awards

Ho Feng Shan plaque (Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum)

Ho's actions in Vienna went unnoticed during his lifetime, save for a black mark in his personnel file for disobeying orders. They were finally recognized, posthumously, when he was awarded the title

by the Israeli organization

at a ceremony in 2001 and honored by

Boys Town Jerusalem Boys Town Jerusalem ( he, קרית נוער ירושלים, ''Kiryat Noar Yerushalayim'') is an Orthodox Jewish educational institution in Jerusalem. Founded in 1949, it houses over 850 boys aged 12 to 20 on its Bayit Vegan campus, and provides o ...

in 2004. In 2015, his daughter represented her father to receive a meritorious certificate for his diplomatic services presented by the ROC government, with participation of representatives from Israel.

References

External links

Ho Feng Shan
at the

website.
Joan Deman's Dissenting View
Holocaust Survivors and Remembrance Project. * ''Above the Drowning Sea'', documentary on the Shanghai Jews, 2017.Above the Drowning Sea Witnesses
/ref> {{DEFAULTSORT:Ho, Fengshan 1901 births 1997 deaths 20th-century memoirists Ambassadors of the Republic of China Chinese emigrants to the United States Chinese Righteous Among the Nations Jewish Chinese history Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni People from Yiyang Taiwanese people from Hunan Writers from Hunan