Ho Feng-Shan

Ho Feng-Shan was born into poverty in Yiyang, Hunan Province, China. Orphaned at age seven, he was educated by Norwegian Lutheran missionaries and graduated from the College of Yale-in-China in Changsha. Earning a doctorate in political economy magna cum laude from the University of Munich in 1932, Ho joined the foreign service of the Republic of China, and was appointed Consul-General in Vienna in 1938.

Following Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria in March 1938, Austrian Jews faced terror and economic confiscation. At the July 1938 Évian Conference, thirty-one of thirty-two nations refused to accept Jewish refugees. Under Nazi policy, Jews could only emigrate if they possessed a visa and entry ticket to a foreign country. While most foreign consulates shut their doors, Ho recognized that entry into the International Settlement of Shanghai required no visa, but Austrian Jews needed a visa stamped in their passports simply to obtain exit permits from the Gestapo.

Defying his superior, Ambassador Chen Jie in Berlin, who ordered him to stop to protect Sino-German relations, Ho worked tirelessly, stamping Chinese entry visas for any Jewish applicant who asked. He issued thousands of visas—estimated between 4,000 and 10,000—saving countless families who fled to Shanghai (which hosted over 20,000 Jewish refugees during WWII) or used the transit visas to reach the Americas, Britain, and Palestine. Ho never sought praise, and his heroism was only revealed after his death when his journalist daughter, Manli Ho, investigated his diplomatic documents.