An Israeli diplomat posted to Taiwan is seeking to work with local film producers to make a movie about a late Republic of China (ROC) diplomat who saved the lives of many Jews during World War II.
Raphael Gamzou, chief of the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, has approached several local producers to explore the possibility of cooperating on a movie about Ho Feng-shan (何鳳山), an anonymous official from Gamzou’s office said.
If enough money could be raised to make the film, it would help locate the Jews or their descendants who were saved by Ho, as well as related historical materials, the official said, adding that several producers have said they would study the proposal.
Ho was posted to the Austrian capital of Vienna in 1937 and was promoted to the post of the consul-general there the following year, when Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany.
The Jews in Austria were desperate to flee the country, but had difficulty getting visas, as 32 countries refused to accept Jewish immigrants because they feared Germany.
Out of sympathy for their plight, Ho issued visas to them in defiance of a ban from ROC ambassador to Berlin Chen Jie (陳介), providing them with an opportunity to escape to other countries via China.
It is unclear how many visas Ho issued to the Jewish refugees at the time, but the number is believed to be about 2,000.
Ho retired from the diplomatic service in 1973 and died in San Francisco in 1997.
His actions in Vienna went unnoticed until his bereaved children wrote about them in his obituary, which was published in the Boston Globe, prompting the Israeli group Yad Vashem to bestow upon him the title of Righteous Among the Nations in 2001.
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