The Jerusalem Post
Date: 09/13/2015
By: NIV ELIS
TAIPEI – Daniel Weihs, who served as the Science and Technology Ministry’s chief
Monto and Manli, the son and daughter of the late Chinese Consul-General in Vienna during 1938-40, Ho Feng Shan, display their “Righteous Among The Nations” awards in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial auditorium in Jerusalem. (photo credit:REUTERS)
scientist from 2010 to 2011 and currently heads the Technion’s robotics department, may have never lived if it were not for the efforts of a Chinese diplomat named Ho Feng- Shan.
It was Ho, China’s consul- general to Vienna during the early years of World War II, who went against his superiors’ orders and issued Weihs’s parents a visa to Shanghai, allowing them to escape Austria. They settled in Kweilin, where Weihs was born, and moved to Israel in 1949.
The Weihs were among thousands of Jews Ho rescued by issuing them visas to Shanghai, earning him the moniker “China’s Schindler.”
On Thursday, Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou, awarded a posthumous Presidential Citation to Ho, nearly 18 years after his death and 32 years after an apparently faux scandal cost Ho his diplomatic pension.
“This is a long delayed citation for Ambassador Ho,” Ma said at a ceremony at the Presidential Palace, in the presence of Ho’s daughter Manli Ho and Weihs. [FULL STORY]
