Honouring the saviour of Shanghai: Exhibit remembers diplomat who helped thousands of Jews

Toronto Star ^ | May 24, 2002 | Martin Knelman

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They call him the Chinese Raoul Wallenberg.

And now, 60 years after he saved more than 10,000 European Jews from Hitler's gas chambers and gave them safe haven in Shanghai, Feng Shan Ho is finally getting his due. In October, a portrait of Ho by Toronto artist Donna Gottdenker will be among 30 works of art shipped from Toronto to Shanghai to help celebrate the miraculous rescue he engineered.

From 1938 to 1940, Ho, a Chinese diplomat in Vienna, issued desperately needed visas at a time when most countries, including Canada and the United States, had closed their doors to doomed Jews. Their policy could be summed up in a phrase coined by Toronto historian and author Irving Abella: "None is too many."

Ho died in 1997 at age 96 just as his story was beginning to emerge from the shadows of history.

A few years ago, the government of China, which had for decades kept the story of its Jewish refugees as quiet as possible, turned a long-shuttered synagogue in what was once Shanghai's ghetto into the Jewish Refugee Memorial Hall. Ho's heroism also earned official recognition from the government of Israel in July, 2000.

And next week, a group of Toronto artists of Jewish and Chinese heritage will express their feelings about this remarkable piece of little-known history with an art show called A Gift of Friendship, opening May 29 at the Chinese Cultural Centre. More than 30 pieces of art, on display in Toronto until June 8, will be sent to Shanghai and will become part of the permanent collection of the Jewish Refugee Memorial Hall.

You could call A Gift of Friendship the most striking Chinese/Jewish art exhibit Toronto has ever had. You could also call it the only Chinese/Jewish art exhibit Toronto has ever had.

It all started when local artist Ian Leventhal took a trip to Shanghai last year to celebrate his 50th birthday.

Leventhal — best known for his humorous, exuberant designs for Second Cup — had always been interested in Chinese culture. And he knew that historically there was a Jewish/Chinese connection he wanted to learn more about.

In Shanghai, Leventhal visited a place that was once a synagogue and is now the memorial hall. From its 82-year-old director, Wang Fa Liang, he learned the story of Ho.

Unlike Wallenberg, Ho's name did not become widely known. But like the Swedish diplomat, Ho saved thousands of Jews from Hitler's gas chambers by getting them exit visas and offering them safe haven in Shanghai.

Between 12,000 and 17,000 European Jews travelled to China by boat via Italy, going around the bottom of Cape Horn and through the Indian Sea. (These refugees were by no means the first Jews to settle in China. The history of Jews in China dates back possibly 1,000 years.)

Even before the arrival of the refugees sent by Ho, Shanghai had a Jewish community of 5,000 people. Many of them had come from Russia to escape pogroms in the 19th century. Other Jews had come to China from India, Iran and Iraq.

In those days, what is now the memorial hall was the Ohel Moishe Synagogue. It was in the Hong Kou district, which had become a ghetto. People who in Europe had been doctors and lawyers had to be retrained as carpenters and construction workers.

Conditions in the ghetto were deplorable. Thousands were squished into unsanitary flats, and they lacked decent food, heaters and clothing. Some died of illness, but unlike Jews in Europe, they weren't murdered.

Yet even after surviving the war, Shanghai's Jewish community was wiped out by another force of history — the Communist takeover in 1949.

Religion was outlawed, and the synagogues had to be closed. Almost all of China's Jews left. There were a number of places they could go, including the United States, Canada and Israel.

But why did Ho's exploits remain relatively unknown for so long?

The number of Jews he saved, though staggering, was only about a quarter of the number rescued by Wallenberg. And Wallenberg's mysterious disappearance after the war added to his mystique. Ho's postwar fate was less dramatic.

Another factor: According to his daughter, who lives in Maine, Ho was a self-effacing person who never sought recognition. Even Karen Shopsowitz, who learned the story of the Shanghai refugees and made a 1992 documentary film about them, was unaware Ho was the hero of the tale.

Ho evidently acted without the authority of his government. The Japanese, who occupied China during World War II, turned a blind eye to the Jewish refugees. Ho was recalled and given a mild rebuke for his conduct.

For years, the Communist Chinese espoused an attitude of hostility to foreigners and certainly did not boast about the arrival of thousands of European Jews. Only recently has the official Chinese attitude to the outside world softened. One result of that change was a decision that the Ohel Moishe Synagogue be restored and reopened as a memorial hall to commemorate China's rescue of Jewish refugees. Once the story came to light, Israel recognized Ho as one of the righteous gentiles who had saved Jewish lives in the Holocaust.

When Leventhal returned from China and began to talk about this saga, he recalls, "my friends in Toronto were just incredulous." To him, it was obvious this chapter of history had been ignored by most of the world. He wanted to change that.

That's when he came up with the idea of asking Jewish and Chinese artists here to create original art works that could be sent to Shanghai as a token of gratitude and recognition.

In October, all the art will be presented to the memorial hall in Shanghai to join its permanent collection.

Eventually the Toronto chapter of ORT, a predominantly Jewish charitable organization, became involved in the project. ORT has organized a fundraising opening night reception, with tickets priced at $25.

"If there can be such a thing as a Holocaust story with a happy ending," Leventhal says, "this is it."

[Squawk 8888]

Fascinating story. I never knew that some Jews found safe haven in China.