A resolute spirit

Nazi authorities told Jews they could leave if they could produce "proof of emigration" to some place that would accept them. However, as evidenced by the Evian Conference in July 1938, most Western nations refused to open their doors to Jewish refugees.

"It is difficult today to re-create the terrible climate of rejection and humiliation that existed for us," Lotte later wrote.

Lotte's father copied the addresses of all those with their surname of Lustig from American telephone directories, and Lotte wrote to them asking for help in her schoolgirl English. "We got almost 48 replies — all equally polite, equally firm that they couldn't help," Lotte recalled.

Then on Oct 18, 1938, Lotte wrote: "My father found himself standing in a long line in front of a building because someone had told him that the Chinese consul was giving out visas to Shanghai. My father happened to have our passports on him. He stood in line and retrieved (the) visas — 'just in case', he told us."

My late father, Ho Feng Shan, the Chinese consul general in Vienna, had devised an ingenious strategy to save Jews by issuing visas to the only accessible entry point in war-torn China — the port city of Shanghai. Shanghai required no entry documents, but the visas facilitated safe passage out of Nazi-occupied territories and put Shanghai on the map as a refuge of last resort for Jews.