It's important to build shared history

Standing on the hills of Milan’s tranquil Monte Stella Park and witnessing hundreds of Italian children remembering humanitarian heroes they had learned about in class brought back memories of my childhood.

I was attending the ceremony in which Milan’s government was honoring the memory of Ho Feng Shan, the Chinese diplomat who saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Europe.

The simple gesture of unveiling a stone plaque recounting his story put Ho alongside 55 other humanitarian heroes who have had such stones unveiled in the park, among them South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela, and Pope John XXIII, who is also credited with saving Jews during World War II.

I watched as hundreds of Italian children repeated Ho’s name to each other and hugged Ho’s daughter, Ho Manli. They asked her to sign their notebooks, which carried classroom essays that told of how Ho issued thousands of visas to Jews between 1938 and 1940 that enabled them to travel to Shanghai and escape the Holocaust.

“Manli, Manli, we want to thank your father, we want to be your friends,” they said. Their eyes twinkled, their voices were full of warmth and respect.

Watching their excitement, I remembered the way I always looked forward to the trip every spring that my primary school organized, in which we visited a local park and paid our respects to Chinese war heroes who we had learned about in class.

On this remembrance day, our teacher would ask us to visit a stone monument inside a local park in Chengdu, on which was engraved messages commemorating Chinese soldiers who died during the Long March undertaken by the Red Army between 1934 and 1936, and those who perished in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), and in the many other battles that paved the way to create the China of today.

My classmates and I would sing songs we learned in class that describe how people fought bravely in battles, how they refused to surrender under torture by their enemies, and how they supported their fellow soldiers in the hope of creating a better China.

After the songs, we would each place a small bunch of flowers next to the monument and pay our respects silently. Those memories have characterized my understanding of China’s 20th century history, and I still feel deeply inspired and touched in my heart when reflecting on them.

Fast forward 20 years and I see Italian children remembering Ho, accepting the Chinese hero into their understanding of the history of World War II, and I feel moved. I felt moved that through the efforts of scholars and the government in Milan, Ho has taken his rightful place in history.

As our world increasingly moves toward a model of globalization, the next generation of young children around the globe will take on the responsibility of building a shared community for mankind. And perhaps the fact that Ho is being remembered in Europe, in the United States, and other countries is one example of building a shared memory of history, to guide us into this shared community of the future.