Letters | China’s humanitarian aid to Ukraine shows it does not forget its friends
- Readers discuss the historical ties between the Red Cross, Ukraine and China, Europe’s potential role as mediator and Vladimir Putin’s effect on the people of Russia
On October 16, 1939, a weary and war-tested group of international physicians finally reached their destination, the headquarters of the Chinese Red Cross Medical Relief Corps in Guiyang, Guizhou province. Their new medical colleagues wondered how in the world they ended up in China.
After all, it was more than 6,000 kilometres from Ukraine, their place of birth. The explanations from Drs Frantisek Kriegel and Wolf Jungermann were straightforward. In broken Chinese, they would utter: “Until all of us are free, none of us are free.”
They were what journalists would later refer to as “premature anti-fascists”. These Jewish doctors had witnessed early on the evil of the rise of National Socialism in Europe. They had joined the Spanish Republicans in their fight against Francisco Franco, Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
When they were incarcerated, NGOs in England and Norway rose to their plea for help while nation-states fell silently to their self-interests. These doctors did not plead for a ride away from the battle against German fascism and Japanese imperialism but for a ride towards it. The ammunition and medicine would follow. It is, as Russia is learning, a Ukrainian thing.
Drs Kriegel and Jungermann witnessed first-hand the exodus of millions of Chinese refugees to the West. They saw the horrible medical consequences of the indiscriminate bombing of helpless civilians in urban settings. They hoped for a future where all our children and grandchildren would never again suffer from these atrocities. Sadly, that future has not arrived.