Ho Feng-Shan

Ho Feng-Shan was born in 1901 in Yiyang, in Hunan province. His father died when he was seven and the family was left destitute; he was educated at a school run by Norwegian Lutheran missionaries and went on to a doctorate at the University of Munich. He entered the Chinese diplomatic service and in 1937 was posted to Vienna, becoming consul-general the following year, just as Germany annexed Austria.

Jews could leave Austria in 1938 if they had somewhere to go, and almost nowhere would take them. Ho grasped that a visa for Shanghai, which as an open port required no visa at all to enter, was nonetheless a document that would satisfy the Nazi authorities and secure release from a camp or permission to travel. He began issuing them to anyone who asked. His superior, the Chinese ambassador in Berlin, ordered him to stop. He did not, and continued after the Nazis seized the consulate building and he had to rent new premises himself.

The numbers are uncertain because the records were lost, but the visas he signed ran into the thousands and are known to have carried families to Shanghai, the Philippines and elsewhere. He was recalled in 1940.

He served Nationalist China and then Taiwan as a diplomat until 1973, retired to San Francisco, and was denied his pension after a dispute with the Taipei government. He never spoke of Vienna. After his death in 1997 his daughter pieced the story together, and in 2000 Yad Vashem named him Righteous Among the Nations.