Show in Chengdu Remembers China's Schindler

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 29, 2002

Show in Chengdu Remembers China's Schindler

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Liu Yuguo, a 73-year-old veteran soldier in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, rode for nearly an hour on his bicycle to Sichuan University on Wednesday morning to see a photo exhibition on the Nazis' persecution of the Jews.

"I don't want to miss the opening ceremony of the 'Visas for Life' photo exhibition. As a veteran who has survived the War of Resistance against Japan (1937-45), I am interested in an exhibition showing the courage of a Chinese diplomat during some of the darkest days in human history," he said.

The seven-day exhibition, which is organized by the Sichuan Provincial Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the Israeli Embassy in China, is in memory of Dr Fengshan Ho (1901-97), the Chinese consul-general in the Austrian capital Vienna from 1938 to 1940.

Credited with saving the lives of thousands of Jews from Nazi Germany by issuing them visas, Ho was awarded the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" last year by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority, one of the highest honours of the State of Israel, Haim said.

The exhibition's opening ceremony was attended by more than 300 people, including Dr Yehoyada Haim, the Israeli ambassador to China.

Unlike Liu, most of the exhibition visitors have been young people, mainly students at Sichuan University.

Without much knowledge about the events of more than 60 years ago, they are curious about the 42 photos on Ho's personal life, shocked by those on the persecution and mass killing of the Jews, and moved by Ho's deeds.

Ai Che, a 20-year-old sophomore from Sichuan University, said: "I was dumbfounded to learn from the exhibition that 6 million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis in Europe. Without people like Ho, more Jews might have had a tragic end.''

After the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, the persecution of Jews by Hitler became increasingly fierce.

To drive Jews out of their country, the Nazi authorities told the first group of Jews sent to Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps that, if they emigrated from Austria immediately, they would be released. As most countries declined to help the Austrian Jews, Ho's visas meant life to them.

In two years, the Chinese Consulate in Vienna, under Ho's watch, issued thousands of visas to Jewish refugees.

Explaining why he helped the Jewish refugees, Ho once said: "I thought it only natural to feel compassion and to want to help. From the standpoint of humanity, that is the way it should be."

Ho issued visas to help Jewish refugees despite being ordered to desist by his superiors and despite the Nazis confiscating his consulate building.

He was never reunited with any of the people he had helped and remained unknown to most of them.

Manli Ho, his daughter, said: "He didn't tell us much about what he did for the Jews in Vienna." (China Daily news)

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