September 7, 2015
No. 187
Ms. Ho Manli, daughter of the late Ho Feng-shan, a former Republic of China Consul-General in Vienna, and her husband, John B. Wood, are visiting Taiwan between September 6 and 12 at the invitation of the ROC government. Ms. Ho will receive a posthumous tribute on behalf of her father from President Ma Ying-jeou.
Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938 and started persecuting Jews aggressively. Although many Jews were extremely eager to escape Austria, most nations denied them visas. Fearing for their lives, Consul-General Ho issued them visas so that they could flee the country. His heroic acts of compassion made him renowned throughout the international community as “China’s Schindler,” with Israel bestowing upon him the honorific Righteous Among the Nations. In the context of the 70th anniversary of victory in the War of Resistance against Japan, his great deeds deserve veneration and respect.
The award ceremony will also be attended by Daniel Weihs, former chief scientist of the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology, whose father was a beneficiary of Consul-General Ho’s actions, and Irena Steinfeldt, director of the Department of the Righteous at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the Holocaust victims.
Accompanied by her husband, Ms. Ho will visit the National Palace Museum, Taipei 101, Maokong, as well as Gold Museum and Taiwan POW Memorial Park in Jinguashi. Ms. Ho will also conduct research at Academia Historica and the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica to gather more information for a book she is writing about her father. (E)