The Lang family from Vienna were among the Jews who received an entry visa to Shanghai thanks to the actions of Feng-Shan Ho.
Kathe (Katharina) and Karl Lang and their two teenage daughters Marion and Susan were secular Jews. After the Anschluss, as the Jews' situation worsened, many of their acquaintances left Austria, but Karl, who had fought in the Austrian Army in World War I, was fiercely patriotic and did not want to leave.
When the Gestapo came to arrest Karl during the Kristallnacht pogrom he presented his medals as proof of his loyalty to Austria, but the soldiers threw the medals in his face, arrested him and sent him to Dachau concentration camp.
"The Chinese attaché […] he issued visas for Shanghai […] it was the Chinese consul in Austria. Thanks to these visas many Jews were saved […] that’s what saved Father"
(from the testimony of Suzi (Lang) Margalit).
Thanks to the immigration permit to Shanghai, Karl was released from Dachau. He left Austria a few days later and reached England. Kathe and her two daughters managed to join him. The family obtained visas to the United States, but the shipping channels between Britain and the US were restricted, eventually limited mainly to freighter passage. Nevertheless, the Langs managed to board a cargo ship holding just ten passengers, thanks to connections with the wife of the shipping company owner. Relatives who remained in Austria were murdered in the Holocaust.
Various items that were saved from the family home in Vienna, among them the crystal goblet, were donated to Yad Vashem to tell the story of the family's flight from Austria thanks to Feng-Shan Ho’s singular actions.
On August 7, 2000, Yad Vashem recognized Feng-Shan Ho as Righteous Among the Nations.
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Courtesy of Suzi (Lang) Margalit, Kibbutz Ein Dor, Israel
