Under Nazi occupation during the Holocaust, few people were able to rescue Jews. In this situation, churches and embassies were uniquely positioned to offer refuge with life-saving visas or asylum. Last spring, 80 diplomats from more than twenty countries who at considerable risk to their own careers saved 300,000 Jews during World War II were honored in an exhibition inaugurated at the United Nations.

Jews, fleeing for their lives, usually needed government permission from the countries they were trying to enter. Obtaining this permission required a visa with an endorsement – often in the form of a stamp or signature on a passport from the consular office. While a transit visa did not allow a person to remain in a particular country, it did grant safe passage from danger.

Diplomats were ingenious in the tactics they applied to smuggle out people. In some cases, diplomats such as Raoul Wallenberg provided protective passports or even established extraterritorial compounds to house Jews. But while Wallenberg and Carl Lutz, as Swedish diplomat and Swiss consul in Budapest respectively, were acting in accord with their neutral countries’ policies, there were others, less well-known, who had to stretch or even defy the instructions of their governments. Such a diplomat was Dr. Feng Shan Ho of the Republic of China who was instrumental in saving thousands of Jews in Nazi-controlled Austria by issuing them visas to flee the Holocaust.

Dr. Feng Shan Ho was initially appointed first secretary to the Chinese legation in Vienna in the spring of 1937. Because of his ease in German and his dynamic personality, he was very active in the local cultural and intellectual circles as a speaker on Chinese culture and customs. Many of his friends among the intelligentsia were Jewish. When Vienna became a center for Jewish emigration, 185 000 Jews were living in Austria, the third largest Jewish community in Europe. The majority, 120 thousand, resided in Vienna. Less than a month after the Anshluss, first Austrian Jews were deported to Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps. Desperate to leave the country, Jews had nowhere to go. Having been turned down by other consulates, many soon discovered they could obtain visas at the Chinese legation.

For two years following the German annexation, Chinese Consul in Vienna Feng Shan Ho issued visas to any Jew who requested one. He knew that Chinese visas to Shanghai were actually used as means for people to get to the US, England and other destinations. Under Japanese occupation, Shanghai did not require a visa for entry, but a visa – as proof of destination – was necessary for Jews to leave Austria.

China’s position was not consistent in the issuing of visas to Jews. Consul General Ho’s immediate supervisor, Chen Jia, The Chinese ambassador in Berlin, was adamantly opposed to giving visas to Jews. He wanted good diplomatic relations with Germany and did not want to undermine Hitler’s anti-Semitic policy. Having learned that the Chinese Consul in Vienna was issuing a large numbers of visas to Jews, Chen Jia called Ho by telephone and ordered him to discontinue this practice. But Ho countered by saying that the Chinese foreign ministry’s orders were to maintain a liberal policy in this regard. This so angered the Ambassador that he sent his subordinate to Vienna on the pretext of investigating rumors that the Consul was selling visas. The investigator arrived unannounced from Berlin and finding no evidence of wrongdoing, returned to Berlin. He was never heard from again. In December 1938, 7000 Jews crossed the border into Switzerland and Italy. Many of them were carrying Chinese visas.

While Ho continued to maintain an active diplomatic life under German rule, he had to be very careful about jeopardizing his career by his liberal visa policy. Less than a year after the Chinese consulate was established, the Nazis confiscated the Jewish-owned consulate building. When Ho asked the Chinese government for funds to relocate the consul, the foreign ministry refused his request, claiming that war-thorn China had no funds to spare. He was forced to find smaller facilities, paying the expenses out of his own pocket.

After his posting in Vienna ended, he spent the remainder of the Second World War involved in China’s struggle against Japan. In 1949, when the Communists came to power, he sided with the Nationalists and continued to work in the diplomatic corps in Taiwan. In 1973, Ho finally retired to San Francisco. Once he left his position, the Nationalists launched a smear program to discredit him. Under suspicion for misappropriation, he was subsequently denied a pension for his forty years of diplomatic services to China.

A survivor saved by Dr. Ho expressed the feelings of many others saved by him: “I believe Feng Shan Ho was a man of principle and compassion. His actions were all the more noble because he acted against the instructions of his superiors. For this I wish to express to him and to his family a sincere and heartfelt thanks”.

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