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I
am the project director of the Visas for Life. The
purpose of the Visas for Life project is to find,
document and recognize diplomats who saved Jews and
other refugees from Nazi persecution. Our program
has traveled to seven countries and placed more
than 100 exhibits honoring these diplomats. We are
co-sponsored by a number of international, Jewish,
civil rights and educational institutions. We are
extremely careful in our research and documentation
of the diplomats and their actions as
rescuers.
The story of diplomatic rescue is not a simple
concept. It often involved diplomats who were
willing to bend the rules of their governments.
They often worked with Jewish organizations and
relief agencies to issue all kinds of visas,
documents and papers to rescue Jewish refugees.
Unfortunately, these men have been overlooked by
historians and their stories are just now coming
out.
For the last two years, we have done extensive
research on the activities of the late Dr. Feng
Shan Ho, who was the Chinese Consul General in
Vienna from 1938 to 1940.
Joan Deman's article shows a fundamental lack of
understanding and knowledge of the lifesaving
purpose of the visas issued by Dr. Ho and other
diplomats. Our research on this topic shows that
the Chinese visas to Shanghai authorized by Dr. Ho
were not intended as entry visas for Shanghai,
where a visa was unnecessary. The value of the
Chinese visas to Shanghai was as proof of
emigration, serving the function of an exit visa.
Under the system set up by Eichmann and the Nazis,
a visa with an end destination was required in
order for Jews to leave Austria. Other countries,
such as Italy, required such proof of an end
destination to issue visas of transit.
Some of the earlier visa recipients were told by
the Chinese Consulate that a visa was not necessary
to enter Shanghai, where the Chinese had no
jurisdiction. Dr. Ho himself said that the Chinese
visas were "to Shanghai in name only" as they were
in fact a means to escape from Austria. He was
working secretly with Jewish relief organizations
to help save Austrian Jews and knew that the
majority of visa recipients would not be going to
Shanghai. Among the survivors we have documented
are those who went to Palestine, Switzerland, the
Philippines, England, Cuba and other
destinations.
There are those among the survivors who were
imprisoned by the Nazis or deported to Dachau and
were released on the strength of a Chinese visa
used as proof of emigration.
We believe that Dr. Ho was the only consular
official who was willing to help Jewish refugees in
Austria at that time. We have found five original
Chinese visas to Shanghai issued to Jewish
families. Their serial numbers indicate that the
number of these documents issued had reached nearly
2,000 a month before Kristallnacht. We have just
found additional documentation that more than 400
Jewish refugees with Chinese visas escaped to
Palestine in the Spring of 1939 via the Aliyah
Bet.
Perhaps the following will help clarify the
lifesaving purpose of these end destination visas.
In testimony during the trial of Recha Sternbuch, a
Swiss Jewish rescuer of Austrian and German Jews,
her lawyer said: ". . .One should also point to the
Palestine transport in the spring of 1939, in which
Mrs. Sternbuch took active part. In this case,
there were hundreds of passports that were equipped
with Chinese visas, although the real goal was to
land illegally on the coast of Palestine. These
visas were used with the intention of fooling the
countries where they passed through, because Italy,
for instance, would never give a transit visa
unless the final destination was
indicated."
While we understand Joan Deman stressing the
importance of ship's tickets to Shanghai, we have
found survivors who escaped from Austria on the
strength of Chinese visas without ship's tickets.
Our documentation shows that one family escaped
from Austria to Genoa with Chinese visas but once
there, had no money to buy ship's tickets. Others
took overland routes. The value of the Chinese
visas as a means of escape was not lost on those
who came to the Chinese Consulate. We have
testimonies of enormous lines in front of the
Consulate.
Dr. Ho's purpose in issuing the visas to Shanghai
specifically was fivefold: 1) It allowed Jews to
escape from Austria; 2) To release Jews arrested or
deported to concentration camps 3) It "bypassed"
the Chinese government, which was opposed to
helping Jewish refugees but had no jurisdiction in
Shanghai, and thus could not stop emigration there;
4) It provided proof of end destination to
countries which would not issue transit visas
without such proof and 5) if the refugees could not
find safe haven elsewhere, they could go to
Shanghai as a last resort during that brief
window.
Dr. Ho did not issue visas to other parts of China
as there would have been no possibility of entry.
At the time, the Chinese Nationalist government
maintained very good diplomatic relations with Nazi
Germany, despite the invasion of China by Japan.
China was fighting on two fronts, the Communist
revolutionaries and the Japanese occupation, and
was dependent on Nazi Germany help. Chiang Kai-shek
was a great admirer of the Nazis and used German
military advisers and arms. He sent his second son
to be schooled by the Nazi military and this son,
before returning to China, participated in the
invasion of Austria with the 98th Jaeger
Regiment.
Even after he was ordered to desist by his
superiors, Dr. Ho continued his "liberal policy" of
issuing these visas to any and all who asked. For
this he was reprimanded and later discredited. Less
than a year after Dr. Ho was appointed the Chinese
Consul General, the Nazis confiscated the consulate
building, saying that it was Jewish owned. When Dr.
Ho asked his government for funds to relocate, the
government refused, saying that China was war with
Japan and no funds were available. Dr. Ho moved the
consulate to smaller quarters and paid all the
expenses out of his own pocket. We believe that
this was among the attempts by the Chinese
government to stop Dr. Ho's visa issuing activities
in Vienna.
Similar examples of visas issued for purposes of
escape exist in the well-documented case of the
Japanese Consul Chiune Sugihara and the Dutch
Consul Jan Zwartendijk in Kovno (Kaunas) Lithuania
in 1940. They issued several thousand visas to
Polish Jews who were trapped in Soviet occupied
Lithuania. Both consuls knew that their visas would
only be a means of escape from Lithuania. The end
visas were issued for the Dutch Caribbean
possessions of Surinam and Curacao and Zwartendijk
in fact called them "bogus" destination visas. Like
Dr. Ho, Sugihara and Zwartendijk did so without
government consent The Polish survivors wound up in
Kobe, Japan. Many went to the US, Canada,
Australia, Latin and South America. A small number
went to Shanghai. This is analogous to Dr. Ho's
efforts to supply visas in order to allow Austrian
Jews to find their way out of the country to many
destinations in 1938 and
1939.
The German refugees who went to Shanghai would not
have obtained Chinese visas unless they went to
Vienna. They most likely were helped by foreign
diplomats in Germany such as British Consul Frank
Foley, American Consul Stephen B. Vaughn and others
who used similar means to help Jewish refugees to
escape.
Joan Deman is certainly entitled to her opinion,
albeit uninformed. However, for her to question the
testimony of other Austrian survivors is a
disservice to historical fact.
The history of diplomatic rescuers such as Dr. Ho
is not revisionist history, but history that has
been unknown until now. For too long, men like Dr.
Ho have been lost to history. These men should be
applauded for their compassion and willingness to
risk their careers, their families and in some
cases their lives to help the Jewish people. To
diminish the importance of such men as Dr. Ho is to
denigrate the personal sacrifice of these people
who certainly deserve our thanks. We hope that
survivors will gain a better understanding of the
role of diplomats in aiding Jews evade the Nazis'
murderous machine.
In closing, I would like to use a quote from
Austria survivors mentioned in the book "Hotel
Bolivia" on the importance of visas in saving
lives:
"Visas! We began to live visas day and night. When
we were awake, we are obsessed by visas. We talked
about them all the time. Exit visas. Transit visas.
Entrance visas. Where could we go? During the day,
we tried to get the proper documents, approvals,
stamps. At night, in bed, we tossed about and
dreamed about long lines, officials, visas.
Visas."
(From
the Rickshaw
Express
website)
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