Qian Xiuling or Siou-Ling Tsien de Perlinghi (1912 – 2008) was a Sino-Belgian chemist who distinguished herself by intervening to save the lives of a war hero and 97 hostages during World War II.
Studies in Belgium
Qian Xiuling was born in 1912 in Yixing, in the Chinese coastal province of Jiangsu, into a large and privileged family. Quickly, Qian Xiuling discovered a passion for science and in particular for chemistry, dreaming of being able to study at the Curie Laboratory and return to put his knowledge to good use in China. In 1929, aged 17, the young girl left her native country to study chemistry at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.
It was during her studies that she met Grégoire de Perlinghi, a Belgian doctor whom she married in 1933. The Japanese invasion of Manchuria and her marriage thwarted her plans to return to live in China, and Qian Xiuling and her husband settled in Herbeumont, in the south of Belgium. In 1939, the chemist is said to have traveled to Paris in the hope of realizing her dream of studying at the Curie Laboratory, but without success, the war having forced the institute to retreat to the United States.
World War II hostages
In May 1940, a young Belgian blew up a German military train by mining the tracks. Arrested, he was immediately sentenced to death by hanging. Wanting to help the young man, Qian Xiuling realizes that she knows the new military governor of Belgium, the newly appointed German General Alexander von Falkenhausen. Serving as a military adviser in China in the 1930s, Falkenhausen had associated with the Qian family and in particular one of his cousins, Lieutenant General Qian Zhuolun. Qian Xiuling writes a letter to the military governor to beg him to spare the young man, and goes to Brussels herself to deliver it personally. A few days later, the prisoner is pardoned.
Four years later, the day after the Normandy landings in 1944, a group of resistance fighters killed three Gestapo officers near the town of Ecaussinnes, in the center of the country. The next day, the German army arrested 97 young men as hostages, summoning the population to hand over the culprits to avoid their execution. Qian Xiuling is then contacted to help them. Although pregnant, she does not hesitate to leave at night to travel to Brussels and intervene personally with Falkenhausen. Although the general is disobeying an order, she manages to convince him and the hostages are freed a few days later.
Subsequently, Falkenhausen will be summoned to Berlin to answer for his insubordination. An ambivalent character, he participated in a failed plot against Hitler, was arrested by the Germans and deported before being taken prisoner of war by the Americans. In 1951, during his trial, Qian Xiuling intervened on his behalf, trying to gather the men he had pardoned to plead his case and organize rallies.
Qian Xiuling died in 2008. She received the Belgian Recognition Medal 1940–1945. In the town of Ecaussinnes, a street is named in his honor. A novel, a television series and a documentary have been dedicated to him.