The Other Schindlers

by Agnes Grunwald-Spier

  Only many years after the war did the Eppels discover the true extent of the Guicherds’ courage:

  … sitting at the same table in which he had hidden the children, when we asked Victor Guicherd if Betty or Jacques had been any trouble did he tell us his secret. No, neither of the children had been any trouble – but ‘les autres …’

  There were others? ‘Oh, yes, there was Oxenberg, Nikolai, and Barr.’ The harvest ‘labourers’ at his table had, in fact, been Jews trying to escape across the mountains into Switzerland.34

  Betty wrote regularly to the Guicherds all through this period and in 1951, when she was 16, she visited them whilst she was staying at a Jewish holiday camp. She went to Israel in 1964. She stayed in touch and visited them regularly. Victor died on 12 March 1988 at the age of 90; Josephine had died in 1984.35

  Betty told me that Victor had a long correspondence with Yad Vashem but was not willing to have the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations. Although he was honoured by Israel, he never received it.36 However, he made Betty a gift of the large metal key to the barn where she and her brother Jacques used to play and hide. It hangs on the wall of her home in Jerusalem, a tangible memento of a truly remarkable couple.

  Since I conducted my research a website, www.hiddenroots.org, has been created for both Betty and David’s family histories. Sadly, David died on 31 March 2006. Betty recently visited the village again with her grandchildren and found that the bread box they used to hide in was still there and offered to buy it. The current owner refused to sell it to her as he was giving it to her. Betty’s problem now is to get it to Jerusalem.37

  Dr Feng Shan Ho (1901–97) was at the Chinese Embassy in Vienna at the time of the Anschluss in March 1938. He witnessed Hitler’s triumphant parade through Vienna and later, with the diplomatic corps, met him. Dr Ho recalled: ‘He was a short little man. He had a ridiculous moustache. He was an unspeakable martinet.’38 He subsequently told his daughter how appalled he had been by the fanatical welcome he witnessed the Austrians give Hitler.39 Immediately following the arrival of the Nazis, vicious persecution made many of the 185,000 Austrian Jews desperate to leave their native land, but no country was willing to accept them. In May 1938 the Chinese Embassy became a consulate and Dr Ho was appointed Consul-General at the age of 37.40 The Evian Conference in July 1938 confirmed the Jews’ appalling situation.

  Dr Ho was so perturbed by the Jews’ circumstances that he personally decided to issue visas to Shanghai. These visas were not actually required by the authorities for entry into China, but the Nazi authorities required such proof of emigration to give permission to leave Austria. Additionally, possession of such visas meant that some Jews detained in camps such as Dachau and Buchenwald were released to return safely to their families; and countries such as Italy and Britain were prepared to grant transit visas with such proof of a final destination.

  Dr Ho was extremely sympathetic to the plight of the Jews. He later wrote in his memoirs:

  Since the annexation of Austria by Germany, the persecution of the Jews by Hitler’s ‘devils’ became increasingly fierce. The fate of Austrian Jews was tragic, persecution a daily occurrence. There were American religious and charitable organisations which were urgently trying to save the Jews. I secretly kept in close contact with these organisations. I spared no effort in using any means possible. Innumerable Jews were thus saved.41

  Dr Ho knew that many people would not wish to go to China, but his visas simply gave them an escape route from Nazi Europe. By September 1938 knowledge of the availability of the Chinese visas was widespread and queues were forming at the Chinese Consulate. Many Jews waited for days, like Hans Kraus, whose wife Gerda recalled:

  There were long, long lines in front of the Consulate and while people were waiting, the Gestapo were outside harassing them and beating them up. There were so many people that Hans stood in line for many days, wondering when he would be able to get in. One day, when he lined up again, he saw the Chinese Consul General’s car about to enter the Consulate. He saw that the car window was open, so he thrust his visa application paper through the open car window. Apparently, the Consul General received it because he then got a call and received the visas.42

  The difficulties of evading the Nazis have been confirmed by two Viennese escapees. Charles Peter Carter was only 17 when he was ‘thrown down the stairs at school a week after the Anschluss, when being a Jew in Vienna meant, among other things, experiencing the transformation of people’s attitudes from friendliness to hostility’. He decided to leave and relatives in London acted as guarantors for his visa which was granted. However:

  Collecting the visa was an altogether different matter as it meant running the gauntlet of Nazi thugs surrounding the British Embassy; achieved with the assistance of Peter’s English tutor who fended off aggressive taunts by replying that she was English and Peter was her nephew!43

  Otto Fleming also corroborated the difficulties. In 1938 he was thrown out of the University of Vienna just before he was due to sit his final medical examinations, and thus, having no qualifications, no country wanted to take him. Hearing that the Chinese Consulate was issuing visas to Shanghai, he bought a steamer ticket there and then approached the British Consulate requesting a tourist visa for Palestine, en route for Shanghai.44 This was granted without difficulties but Otto stayed in Palestine and never reached Shanghai. He never actually obtained the Chinese visa, but knowing it would be easy led Otto to leave. He confirmed the dangers of being seen in the streets of Vienna at this time and told me that women rather than men tended to go out more because they often were less Jewish-looking and less likely to be harassed by the Nazis.45

  Dr Ho personally intervened for his friends the Rosenbergs on the very morning after Kristallnacht, when he called at their home to say goodbye. He had issued them with visas for Shanghai but the Gestapo had called at the house to take Mr Rosenberg to a labour camp. His courageous intervention46 led to the release of Mr Rosenberg and the family left Vienna safely.47 Dr Ho’s behaviour caused considerable concern amongst the authorities, as the Nationalist Chinese government continued to maintain good diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany, and Chiang Kai-shek, China’s ruler, admired the Nazis.

  Not surprisingly, the Chinese Ambassador in Berlin, Chen Jie, who was Consul-General Ho’s direct superior, was adamantly opposed to the issuing of visas to Jewish refugees. He wanted to maintain good diplomatic relations with Germany and did not want to contravene Hitler’s policy against Jews. Having learned that the Chinese Consulate in Vienna was issuing large numbers of visas to Jews, Ambassador Chen called Ho by telephone and ordered him to desist. Ho tried to deflect him by saying that ‘the Foreign Ministry’s orders’ were to maintain a ‘liberal policy’ in this regard. On hearing this, Chen snapped: ‘If that is so, I will take care of the Foreign Ministry end, you just follow my orders!’48

  But Dr Ho continued with his ‘liberal policy’, issuing visas at a rate of about 500 a month for two years. It is estimated that he saved in excess of 12,000 Jews but it is not possible to know the real number. It is known that on 18 October 1938 he issued visa No 1681 to Mrs Lustig and visa No 1787 to Mr Lustig. They used them to escape to Shanghai in January 1939 and their daughter Lotte, now 76, still has them. She concludes that these numbers prove Dr Ho issued at least 106 visas that day.49

  Aware of the dangers in Vienna, Dr Ho sent his wife and 11-year-old son to America for safety. In the spring of 1938 the Nazis confiscated the Chinese Consulate’s building. Dr Ho’s government refused his request for funds to relocate the Consulate. He therefore moved the Consulate to smaller premises, meeting all the costs himself. He was censured by his bosses on 8 April 1939, and in May 1940 he was transferred from Vienna. He alone seemed willing to help the desperate Austrian Jews. When asked why, he replied: ‘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.’50

  After he left Vienna he retur
ned to China, where he was involved in the war effort against the Japanese. In 1947 he became Ambassador to Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries for nine years. His daughter Manli was born in Cairo. After the civil war, he sided with the Chinese Nationalists in Taiwan and was their Ambassador in Mexico, Bolivia and Colombia. He retired in 1973 but the Chinese Nationalist government in Taiwan ‘launched a public vendetta to publicly discredit him’ and he was denied his pension after forty years’ service. Manli has written that the reasons for this attack have never been revealed, and thirty years later his name had not been cleared.51 He lived to be 96 and died on 28 September 1997, having written his autobiography, Forty Years of My Diplomatic Life, in Chinese in 1990. On 7 July 2000 he was recognised as a Righteous Among the Nations by Israel but, as Dr Paldiel commented on Dr Ho’s nomination: ‘I find it sad that Mr Ho was nominated only after he passed away in 1997. We could have put these questions to him, which would have made it easier … But also we could have thanked him in person.’52

  Normally Righteous have to have put themselves at risk and have received no payment. In the case of diplomats, Yad Vashem has to be clear that the diplomat was disobeying his government’s instructions before an award can be made. Manli Ho believes it was her father’s poverty-stricken childhood that influenced his behaviour towards the Austrian Jews. She does not regard him as having been a religious man. She considers that it was education that influenced him most – both in the Western liberal arts and traditional Chinese Confucian ethics. Added to this was the influence of growing up during a transitional period in Chinese history, when the ancient East met the new West. She therefore believes he tried to live his life according to ‘the best in Confucian and Judeo-Christian values’.53

  Manli also confirms her father’s pride in being Chinese and how he brought her and her brother up to value their Chinese heritage, naming them after Confucian principles. She also feels that he was influenced by the times into which he was born. He was part of ‘a generation of Chinese who felt that China had been humiliated and persecuted by 100 years of foreign imperialism. His generation was determined not to allow that humiliation to continue. In that sense my father was very sensitive to persecution and to bullying of any peoples.’54

  Ho was born on 10 September 1901, in a rural part of Hunan Province. At the age of 7 he was not only poor but fatherless as well. The Norwegian Lutheran Mission in China not only helped him and his family, it educated him as well, and for that he was grateful all his life.55 He wrote in his autobiography:

  At the schools that I attended, from the schools of the [Norwegian] Lutherans, to the College of Yale-in-China … The emphasis in their education was to build individual character; that is to learn the Judeo-Christian values of self-sacrifice in giving unto others, and of service to society.56

  When his daughter turned 20, the Chinese legal age of majority, Dr Ho wrote to her saying ‘that after having raised and educated me, he hoped that I would live my life as a “useful” human being. I don’t think I could have asked for a better role model.’ Rabbi Moshe Linchner spoke at an event to honour Dr Ho in Jerusalem on 19 February 2004, in the presence of Manli, the Chinese Ambassador and some of the survivors and their children. He said:

  He sacrificed his career and endangered his life to save thousands of Jews who otherwise would have perished at the hands of the Nazis. It takes tremendous courage and integrity to stand up against a cruel foreign country like Nazi Germany. It take even more courage to stand up to one’s superiors and own country. Dr Ho did this because it was the right thing to do.57

  He did not believe in telling everyone what he had done and his daughter quotes an ancient Chinese proverb: ‘Good deeds performed to be seen by others are not truly good.’58 Dr Ho expressed his philosophy of life in a poem he wrote for his wife Shauyun on New Year’s day 1947:

  The gifts Heaven bestows are not by chance,

  The convictions of heroes not lightly formed.

  Today I summon all spirit and strength,

  Urging my steed forward ten thousand miles.59

  In September 2007 Manli took her father’s ashes back to China, ten years after his death, as he had always wished to be laid to rest in his native land. He was buried in his hometown of Yiyang in Hunan Province in the beautiful Hui-longshan Park. The city of Yiyang scheduled a commemorative event on 28 September 2007 in honor of his ‘homecoming’. Manli wrote on that occasion:

  It has taken me 10 years of research and documentation to piece together the history of my father’s humanitarian efforts. During his lifetime, he neither sought nor received recognition for his deeds. In fact, he rarely spoke of his tenure as the Chinese Consul General in Vienna from 1938 to 1940. It was only by chance, after his death in 1997, that his helping thousands of Austrian Jews escape the Holocaust came to light. But, having to piece together this puzzle nearly 70 years later means that we may never know the full extent of my father’s humanitarian efforts …

  I was often asked why a Chinese diplomat would save Jews in Austria when others would not. My response has been: ‘If you knew my father, you wouldn’t have to ask.’ This is usually followed by: ‘But weren’t you surprised to discover this facet of your father?’ No, I was not surprised because what my father did was completely in character.60

  Manli has said, ‘I am often asked why he did it’, and she explains:

  My father strove to live his life according to the best in Confucian and Judeo-Christian values. If helping those in distress is natural to a human being, then why should it warrant particular praise or mention? For his reasons in helping Jewish refugees, my father simply 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’ … And although my father is gone, I feel as though he lives on through the survivors.61

  Two cousins in Lithuania, Irena Veisaite and Margaret Kagen (see p. 88), were rescued separately by Roman Catholics who were true humanitarians. Jews had been in Lithuania since the fourteenth century. In 1939 Jews made up one-third of the urban population and yet during the Holocaust more than 90 per cent of Lithuania’s 240,000 Jews were killed, mostly by Lithuanians on Nazi orders.62

  Stefanija Ladigiené (1902–67). Irena Veisaite was born in 1928 in Kovno and was protected by several Lithuanian families. Her last place of hiding was provided by Stefanija Ladigiené in Vilnius, whom she called her second mother. She was the widow of a general, Kazimieras Ladyga, who had been shot by the Russians. She was a very good woman – intelligent and well educated, who had worked as a journalist and was involved in the Resistance. Irena was sent to her in March 1944 by a couple who had rescued her from the Kaunas Ghetto. Stefanija told Irena she had taken her in to compensate for the injustice that had been done to Jews by her compatriots. Irena was overwhelmed by Stefanija’s kindness to her as when she first arrived she was very pale and hungry. ‘Food was very scarce – she gave her more pasta than her own children – later she kissed her and Irena cried because it was such a long time since someone had kissed her and been kind to her.’63

  Irena Veisaite was rescued for purely humanitarian reasons:

  Stefanija Ladigiené’s sole motive in accepting me was her profound humanity, love to her next. A deeply believing Catholic, she became my second mother. In those hard occupation and post-war years, she shared her last bite of bread with me. She did not have a separate flat, and the SS headquarters were located in the same building. If I had been caught, Stefanija Ladigiené would have been killed in Paneriai with her children. However, her act, I would say heroism, was so natural as if there could be no other way. This gave me an unusual feeling of security at that time.64

  Irena arrived at Stefanija’s home after a series of unfortunate adventures but, as she originally wrote to me, she ‘was saved by several Lithuanian Christian families’. 65 She had a very pleasant childhood in a large middle-class family. In 1938 her parents divorced and just before the war in 1941 her mother was in ho
spital. Her mother was arrested while there and sent to prison. Irena then described how as a young girl of 13 she was sent to the Kaunas (Kovno) Ghetto with her parents and Aunty Polla Ginsburg, where she stayed for two and a half years.

  In 1942 friends of her parents from Belgium, Ona and Juozas Strimaitis, managed to get a message to her that they were looking for her and wanted to help her go into hiding. The wife had worked with her father. They encouraged her to escape from the Ghetto. It was a difficult decision, but she did it. She left the Ghetto with a working brigade, with her yellow star just pinned on for easy removal later. At the particular moment that she left the column of Jews, she could have been shot at any moment. However, she was two hours late to the meeting point and there was no one there. She therefore went to the Strimaitis’ home and spoke to the caretaker. She was extremely scared because he could have betrayed them all. They gave her false documents and a passport and it was decided she should go to Vilnius where nobody knew her. One of the documents she was given said she was the daughter of a director of a gymnasium.66

  On 7 November 1943, aged 15, Irena travelled to Vilnius on a very crowded train. She was to have stayed with a dentist who was Mr Strimaitis’ sister, but the family were very nervous so she was moved to a surgeon, the brother of Ona Strimaitis, Pranas Bagdonavicius, who knew her family as well. He told people she was from the country. She was registered at his address and went to church. She spoke good Lithuanian, unlike many Jews who were used to speaking Yiddish, and spoke it with an accent. All was well until some friends came round with a book on Van Gogh and she said how much she liked his work. Perhaps this was unexpected from a country girl and people began to suspect she was Jewish. Her host’s fiancée heard the rumours so Irena had to be moved on.