History Cool KidsThis is Ho Feng-Shan. He was a Chinese diplomat in Vienna during World War 2 who sa
History Cool KidsThis is Ho Feng-Shan. He was a Chinese diplomat in Vienna during World War 2 who saved the lives of thousands of Jewish people by providing them with visas, ignoring strict orders.Ho is often referred to as the “Chinese Schindler,” but people should remember his name. While the exact number is unknown due to lost documentation, we do know that he issued close to 2,000 visas during the first half of his time at his diplomatic post. Others have looked at a specific serial number, which estimates that he issued nearly 4,000 visas. A professor of Jewish studies at Nanjing University, Xu Xin has stated, “Nowadays most people believe that he saved more than 5,000 lives at the time. More importantly, Ho was probably the first diplomat to really take action to save the Jews.” Lilith-Sylvia Doron met Ho by chance when Hitler arrived in Vienna on 11 March 1938. This was a time when there was an increase in violent physical attacks against Jewish people, which was only encouraged by Nazi propoganda. “Ho, who knew my family, accompanied me home. He claimed that, thanks to his diplomatic status, the [Nazis] would not dare harm us as long as he remained in our home. Ho continued to visit our home on a permanent basis to protect us from the Nazis,” said Doron. Gerda Gottfried Kraus told the story of how her husband went to the Chinese consulate after Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), hoping to find a way out. Despite not being able to enter the consulate, he managed to throw his application into the window of an arriving diplomat’s car. “Apparently, the consul-general [Ho Feng-Shan] received it, because [my husband] then got a call and received the visas.” When the Nazis took over the embassy building because it was owned by Jews people, Ho opened a new office using his own money so he could continue working to issue visas. He continued signing visas until May 1940 when he was ordered to return back to China. Ho died in 1997 at the age of 96. In 2000, he was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations by Israel. -- source link