Robert Holden, of Upper Township, plans to give his latest book, ‘Visas to Shanghai, the Story of Feng-Shan Ho,’ to area schools. The book describes a Chinese diplomat’s effort to help Jews escape the Nazis in Vienna.
Robert Holden is a retired educator who has helped create courses on the Holocaust and on Japanese atrocities in China during World War II.
UPPER TOWNSHIP — A lifetime ago and a world away from South Jersey, a Chinese diplomat in Vienna sought to save as many Jews as possible from the rising Nazi regime.
Feng-Shan Ho did so by issuing thousands of visas to Shanghai, offering a route out of Europe and possibly to the United States and other countries.
Robert Holden, a retired educator who has helped create courses on the Holocaust and on Japanese atrocities in China during World War II, has completed a book for young adults about Ho’s efforts.
“Visas to Shanghai, the Story of Feng-Shan Ho,” will be published by ComteQ Publishing in Margate in early 2022.
“I think teenagers and young people need to hear this man’s story,” Holden said recently.
When the publication is available in January, Holden plans to distribute copies to local schools.
Illustrated by Ocean City artist Joy Kolitsky, one of Holden’s former students, the book tells of the risks Ho undertook to offer as many visas as possible.
Holden said he wanted to tell a little-known story, partly in response to current events.
“The rash of anti-Asian attacks over the past two years in this country have been both shocking and horrifying,” Holden wrote in the preface to the book. “It is my hope that this book will make our young people aware of the great humanity of men like Feng-Shan Ho, a good and decent Chinese man who saved people who were not of his race or creed.”
Funding for the publication comes from the British Columbia Association for Learning and Preserving the History of World War II in Asia. Holden said the organization was enthusiastic about the latest project, depicting the heroism of an Asian to American students.
Holden may also sell some copies of the book, he said, to offset some of the expenses.
“I don’t anticipate making any money off this,” he said.
Abbreviated as BC ALPHA, the Canadian group also funded a trip to China for Canadian and American educators in 2006, including Holden and fellow educator Doug Cervi, who is now the executive director of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education.
Following that trip, the Holden and Cervi worked together on a secondary education guide, “The Nanking Massacre and Other Japanese Atrocities Committed During the Asia-Pacific War, 1931-1945.” Holden also served on the committee that revised New Jersey’s Holocaust education curriculum in 2003 and has been involved in multiple other educational initiatives.
Holden published his previous book, “Upper Township and its Ten Village,” in 2020.
In the latest book, Holden writes that no one knowns how many people Ho helped to escape from the Nazis, but he estimates the number in the thousands, possibly in the tens of thousands. Many continued on to other countries, but during the war, some 20,000 people lived in a tiny restricted area in Shanghai. Holden visited the area in his visit to China and the museum dedicated to that time.
In 1940, Ho was ordered back to China. After that, he was part of the Nationalist Chinese struggle against the Japanese occupation. The book includes a photo with Ho and Nationalist leader Chaing Kai-Sheck. When the Communists defeated the Nationalist in 1949, Ho followed the Nationalists to Taiwan, according to the book.
Ho continued his work as a diplomat, serving as Taiwan’s ambassador to several countries. Ho retired in 1973, settling in San Francisco. He wrote a memoir, “My Forty Years as a Diplomat,” first published in 1990. Ho died in 1997 at the age of 96.
In 2000, Israel declared Ho as Righteous Among the Nations, which recognizes people from multiple countries and faith who risked their lives and liberty to help Jews during the Holocaust.
“The list of rescuers is seemingly endless and this should give us pause when we think that the world is purely evil and never contains any good,” Holden wrote. “All of these rescuers became determined, each in their own way, to step up and do the right thing; to be human to their fellow man.”
Holden concludes the book with a quote from Ho, “I thought it only natural to feel compassion and want to help. From the standpoint of humanity, that is the way it should be.”
He also praised Kolitsky’s work on the book. He said he taught her in the fourth grade, and even then recognized her talent.