Qian Xiuling

Qian Xiuling (1912–2008), or Siou-Ling Tsien de Perlinghi, was a Chinese-Belgian scientist who won a medal for saving nearly 100 lives during World War II in Belgium. She had a street named after her and a 16-episode TV drama was made of her life for Chinese television.

In this Chinese name, the family name is Qian (Tsien).
Qian Xiuling
Qian Xiuling in 1933
Born1912
Yixing, Jiangsu, China
Died2008
NationalityChinese and Belgian
Other namesSiou-Ling Tsien de Perlinghi
Known forSaving lives during World War II in Belgium
SpouseGrégoire de Perlinghi
Qian Xiuling
Traditional Chinese錢秀玲
Simplified Chinese钱秀玲

Life
Qian Xiuling in 1930

Qian was born in Yixing in Jiangsu Province in 1912 to a large and well connected family.[1]

In 1929, she left for Europe to study chemistry in Belgium at the Catholic University of Leuven.[2]

In 1933, she married Grégoire de Perlinghi, a Belgian doctor,[3] after breaking her engagement to her Chinese fiancé,[4] and they went to live in Herbeumont.

In 1939, one source suggests that she travelled to Paris in hopes of studying in Marie Curie's laboratory but the whole facility had been moved to the United States because of the war.[2]

Qian marrying Grégoire de Perlinghi in 1933

In June 1940, her town of Herbeumont was occupied by the German army when a Belgian youth blew up a military train by burying a mine under the railway. The youth was sentenced to death, but Qian realised that she knew the German general who was in charge of Belgium. She had known General Alexander von Falkenhausen when he was working in China[5] as part of the Sino-German cooperation. Falkenhausen had been an advisor to Chiang Kai-shek[6] and he worked closely with Qian's elder cousin, Lieutenant General Qian Zhuolun. She wrote a letter and travelled to see Falkenhausen, who decided to use his authority to spare the boy for reasons of humanity.[1][5]

On 7 June 1944, Qian was contacted again when the Germans had taken 97 Belgians prisoner under sentence of death in revenge for three Gestapo officers who had been killed in the nearby town of Écaussinnes.[2] Despite being pregnant with her first child she again travelled to see Falkenhausen and asked him to intervene.[2] He hesitated but eventually agreed to release the people, although he knew that he was disobeying an order. The general was summoned to Berlin to explain his insubordination.[2] Falkenhausen was spared German trial and punishment by the war's end, but was arrested for war crimes. He was tried in Belgium in 1951.[6]

Qian appeared at the trial and pleaded for Falkenhausen's good character.[2] He was sentenced for twelve years for executing hostages and deporting Jews, and deported to Germany to serve his sentence. After three weeks, when the minimum sentence according Belgium law had passed,[7] he was pardoned by German chancellor Konrad Adenauer and retired. He died in 1966.[6]

Legacy
External video
video icon “Qian Xiuling: China’s female Schindler in Belgium during WWII”, CCTV.com

Qian was awarded the Medal of Belgian Gratitude 1940–1945 by the Belgian government.[1]

Qian's story was made into a sixteen-episode Chinese TV drama, Chinese Woman Facing Gestapo's Gun, starring Xu Qing.[5] She was given a medal by the Belgians after the war but she never told her family in China of her story.

In 2003, Qian's granddaughter, Tatiana de Perlinghi, made a documentary film entitled Ma grand-mère, une héroïne? (My grandma, a heroine?).[8]

In 2005, she was thanked by Zhang Qiyue the Chinese Ambassador to Belgium who visited the rest home where she lived.[9] Qian's husband had died in 1966. There is a street named Rue Perlinghi in her honour in the city of Ecaussinnes. A novel by Zhang Yawen was published in 2003 with the English title of Chinese Woman at Gestapo Gunpoint .[10]

References
  1. A Story of World War II Heroism Comes Home to China. China.org.cn. Retrieved on 2015-04-23.
  2. Qian Xiuling: World War II Hero Archived 2018-12-30 at the Wayback Machine, Frank Zhao, 15 September 2014, Women of China, retrieved 1 April 2015
  3. "Décès de Siou-Ling Tsien, qui avait sauvé Ecaussinnes des nazis" (in French). 7sur7. 1 August 2008.
  4. Qin, Bo. "The History And Context Of Chinese-Western Intercultural Marriage In Modern And Contemporary China (From 1840 To The 21st Century)". Rozenburg Quarterly - Asia Studies. 3 (Chinese-Western Intimacy and Marriage – An Invisible International Hierarchy). Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  5. "A Story of World War II Heroism Comes Home to China". China.org.cn. April 2002. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  6. Alexander von Falkenhausen, spartacus-educational.com, retrieved 1 April 2015
  7. "Alexander von Falkenhausen". www.belgiumwwii.be. Retrieved Aug 6, 2020.
  8. "Ma grand-mère, une héroïne?" (in French). RTBF. Archived from the original on 3 April 2015. Retrieved 2 April 2015.
  9. The "Chinese Schindlers", 25 July 2005, retrieved 1 April 2015
  10. Haiyan, Written by Zhang Yawen Translated by Chen; Ziliang, Li (2003). A Chinese Woman at Gestapo Gunpoint. Beijing: Foreign Language Press. ISBN 7119031597. OCLC 491515630.
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