Chapter 5
WEIHSIEN
With the dawn of our first day in Weihsien Camp came opportunity to explore our surroundings. Weihsien had seen happier times. In its prime, during the early years of the century, it had been a model missionary compound of the American Presbyterian Church. Within the walls of the six-acre enclosure were a Bible school, hospital, bakery, long rows of single-story dormitories, and western-style homes for American missionary doctors and teachers. In fact, two notable personalities, novelist Pearl Buck and Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life magazines, had both been born there.
Leading from the high wooden gates up the
slope through the center of the one-time campus was a black cinder road which
we came to call "
For more than a year both Chinese and Japanese troops had been quartered on this compound, and although the buildings had not been damaged their interiors were in shambles with fixtures ripped out and furnishings ruined. Their contents now were scattered about yards and doorways in unsightly piles of debris. Gratefully, a good deal of this material could now be salvaged, refashioned and put to good use. We all learned a new word, "scrounge," which meant picking up any piece of anything we thought would make our homes more livable.
In his well-known book Shantung Compound one of the internees, Langdon Gilkey, gives a graphic description of our community:
- We were, in the words of the British, a "ruddy" mixed bag. We were almost equally divided in numbers between men and women. We had roughly 400 who were 60 years of age and another 400 under 15. Our oldest citizen was in his mid-90s, our youngest was a baby who had just been born in the camp hospital.
We were equally diverse in our national and racial origins. At the start of camp our population comprised about 800 Britains, 600 Americans, 250 Hollanders, 250 Belgians (the major portion of the last two groups were Roman Catholic clerics of various sorts).---
'These are approximate numbers. Scandinavians should also have been included. By April 1, 1943, our camp population numbered 1,751.---
--- We
were later joined by about 100 Italians from the
--- Called White Russians because they were politically aligned with the Mensheviks (whites) who were defeated by the Bolsheviks (reds) in the power struggle following the revolution of 1919.---
The most obvious diversity lay
in the differences in the social status which each of us had enjoyed in the
outside world. As we could see from the first moment, our group ranged up and
down the entire social ladder. Our members included some from the well-to-do
leaders of
The first great crisis faced by this vast hoard of people thrust so unceremoniously into the ill-prepared compound was occasioned by the basic demands for toilet facilities. Since our captors were ensconced in the western missionary homes there remained four simple latrines containing no more than five or six toilets apiece to service our entire community. These toilets were of the simplest Chinese design, mere holes in the floor bereft of flushing mechanisms and designed to be emptied regularly by Chinese coolies with "honey buckets"
From dawn to dusk lines outside the latrines were interminable, and before long contents were overflowing, creating the most repulsive conditions imaginable. This was a special trial for women, due not only to their delicate sensibilities but to the fact that they had only one latrine to the men's three. This, we learned, was due to misinformation the Japanese had received concerning the ratio of the sexes of their captives.
This situation was somewhat alleviated when a delegation of volunteers, among them intrepid Catholic nuns, tied cloths over their faces and waded into the loathsome mass of excrement to clean it up. In time, a crew of engineers devised a system for hand-flushing the toilets after each use.
The first day after our arrival at the Weihsien Compound, we were summoned to the playing field to be identified and counted, an irritating ordeal that took several hours. The commandant read the rules. One strictly specified that we were to have no contact with the Chinese on the outside of the wall. This was a fore-taste of the innumerable roll calls, an immutable feature of camp life.
The bell tolled at 8:30 each morning and again at 6:30 p.m. (earlier in the winter). This was to summon the entire camp population to six designated areas.
Residents of our section assembled in the church yard in rows of 20, I.D. badges properly displayed on the left shoulder. This ritual required no less than 45 minutes, often much longer if somebody couldn't be accounted for. Gratefully, while waiting to be counted, we were permitted to relax and visit with friends.
The stern-faced officers who moved at such a
deliberate pace to peer at our badges and check our names in their registers
soon became familiar figures to us. Fortunately the 70 guards assigned to the
Weihsien camp were not members of the regular Japanese army but civilian
diplomatic officers, who had served in various capacities in
For the most part, the guards' treatment of us
was marked by decorum and good discipline, and efforts were made to observe the
articles of the Geneva Convention governing treatment of civilian prisoners of
war. A few, like Mr. Kogi who had studied in a
mission school, had come in contact with Christianity in
Still when our captors, small of stature and looking almost like children beside a 6 foot 2 inch American or Englishman, felt intimidated they could respond with unfeigned arrogance or fly into a rage barking, ranting, gesticulating, slapping and kicking. When in dress uniform these diminutive men strutting back and forth, their long Samurai swords trailing in the dirt, looked so much like small boys at play it was hard to suppress a smile. Smiling or laughing in their presence, however, is something we early learned to avoid — as this was often taken as a sign of contempt, insolence or lack of respect, inviting angry reprisals and threats.
Among 70 men of any nationality one will, of course, discover tremendous diversity. And while some of these guards early identified themselves as friendly, others we soon learned to give a wide berth. A few acquired interesting nicknames.
The commandant, a heavy scowling man of surly disposition, was soon dubbed "King Kong." Another officer, who looked like the Japanese counterpart of Sergeant Snorkle, took a perverse delight in squelching any activity which appeared suspiciously like fun. The sight of an internee sunbathing or a couple holding hands would elicit a growled "Pu Hsing Ti.” (You can't do that!)
---'Wade-Giles Romanization was in wide use during World War II era.---
Soon he had earned the moniker Sergeant Pu Hsing Ti. Before long wherever this gentleman appeared, he was greeted by throngs of small children who followed, dancing up and down chorusing, "Sergeant Pu Hsing Ti, Sergeant Pu Hsing Ti."
This was most disconcerting, of course. So
much so that the man appealed to the commandant, and a short time later the
following announcement appeared on the camp bulletin board: "Henceforth in
the
Life is full of surprises, and we soon learned it was a mistake to judge the Japanese by their appearance. One internee described a surprising encounter with a menacing-looking guard:
It was with great apprehension that we saw one afternoon at tea time one of the soldiers, loaded down with every kind of portable weapon, approach a building where, among others, an American family with a baby was housed. I was the only male present at the time. Gingerly I opened the door at the guard's brisk knock. He bowed and sucked air in sharply through his teeth. Then unloading his extensive armor, to my utter amazement he opened his great coat and pulled out a small bottle of milk.
“Please,” he said haltingly, “take for baby.” After we had recovered from our surprise sufficiently to invite him to come in, we asked whether there was anything we could do for him in return.
“May I hear classical records?”
he asked. Again we gasped and said, “Who are you?” He answered, “I, second
flutist in
Weihsien camp was, in effect, a hastily assembled city of 1800 people of 17 nationalities wedged into the confines of a six-acre compound. All of the organizations and services that develop in a normal community over decades we were now forced to construct almost overnight. In this enterprise, our Japanese overlords demonstrated the commendable gifts of efficiency and administration that have made them the world leaders in commerce and industry.
Ten days after our arrival in camp, the Commandant issued a decree that within 48 hours we were obliged to create nine committees, each of which would operate under the direction of a Japanese officer. These committees would then elect a member to serve on a council which would represent the interests of the entire community to the Japanese authorities, as well as to a delegate from the Swiss Council who made periodic visits to the camp.
Employing the democratic process in the
election of committee members was, at this stage, clearly impractical.
Virtually all of us were strangers to one another and, as such, had no
intelligent basis on which to cast a vote for anyone. Hence the generally
acknowledged or informal leaders of the four major groups in camp from Peking,
Tientsin,
These committees, presumably designed to care for all the needs of the camp, were designated General Affairs, Discipline, Labor, Education, Supplies, Housing or Quarters, Medical, Engineering and Finance.
Under their direction the entire camp was organized into a work force with every able-bodied individual, including youth, given an assignment. The internees themselves enforced the rules of their own making: If you're not ill, you'd better be on the job and on time — "No work — No eat." (Manicures didn't last long in camp, and of course there was never any nail polish anyway!) On the registration form we had been required to fill out upon arrival, I, under the heading "work experience," had indicated that I had worked part time as a cook in seminary. Hence I was appointed to one of the three camp kitchens. Christine's assignment was helping to clean and prepare vegetables. With few conveniences or proper appliances, this chore took many hours each day. The task she most disliked was peeling and cutting leeks, especially in the winter when they were frozen. Her hands often became so numb that she couldn't even tell when she'd cut a finger. And all of the women worked standing on a cement floor, often in an inch or two of water. That vegetable crew caught plenty of colds but not a lot of pneumonia so we were all blessed!
Since the preponderance of our camp population was drawn from the professional class, few had the practical skills required for the maintenance of this small city. Gratefully, however, among us was a sprinkling of crafts-men, artisans and skilled laborers versed in the arts of construction, masonry, carpentry, baking, plumbing, etc. These "masters" now began to school novices assigned to their work force. Professional engineers and skilled plumbers had soon trained a corps of apprentices who set about to provide a satisfactory solution to the monumental latrine and bath crises. A shower system was devised and operated by a gang of workers, whose labors with hand pumps sent water to a tower and provided a steady flow, though small at times, to bathers.
Among us were two professional bakers from
Few of us who arrived in camp that March had
any recent acquaintance with the rigors of manual labor. Denizens of the
expatriate world of business and commerce, for the most part, lived a life of
shameless luxury surrounded by every imaginable comfort and a small army of
Chinese servants to do their bidding. Even missionaries, many of whom had grown
up on farms, employed servants in their homes in
Now overnight under this new order, bank clerks, city administrators, missionaries and professors were turned into ditch diggers, carpenters, masons, stokers and hospital orderlies. The result was an epidemic of blistered hands, aching backs, sore muscles and tired feet. But undeniably there are rich benefits in subjecting the body to hard labor. Sleep comes easily at night when the body is fatigued, and the mind relaxes in the satisfying knowledge one has put in an "honest day's work" In time, overweight businessmen and missionaries with pot-bellies and sagging jowls, were exhibiting a new trimness and muscle tone. One drug addict who entered Weihsien a virtual derelict gained weight, put on muscle and after a year was fit and rejuvenated. We all rejoiced in his rehabilitation, but his gaining several pounds on camp food made him an oddity.
Manual work is also a healthy leveler and a warm camaraderie grew between once stuffy professors, import executives, and green young missionaries who worked together in the hot sun building a latrine or dormitory extension.
One of the most pressing concerns in the early days of camp was continuing education for the children. After the entire faculty and student body of Chefoo (the China Inland Mission school for missionary children) arrived at Weihsien in the fall of '43, we had more than 400 youngsters under age 18 in our community.
Organizing classes for all the students, kindergarten through 12th grade (the responsibility of the education committee), was a Herculean task indeed. There were virtually no textbooks or equipment and the only regular classrooms on the compound were of necessity being used as dormitories. The dedication and resourcefulness of teachers and staff were a marvel to behold. Yet, regular classes continued until our liberation, and three classes of seniors actually took the Oxford Matriculation Exam.
Many of the students in Chefoo boarding school, when war broke out, were separated from their parents. The teachers were more than ever now not only instructors but surrogate parents, a responsibility they did not take lightly. This noble corps of missionaries resolved that even in prison camp, under the most appalling conditions, they would not relax standards of decorum and good breeding one whit.
Mary Taylor Previte, the great granddaughter
of CIM founder, Hudson Taylor, and her brother, James (later general director
of Overseas Missionary Fellowship), were Chefoo high scholars who also became
"Weihsienites." She recalls, "Our Chefoo teachers never watered
down the standards for learning or decorum. There wasn't one set of standards
for the outside world, they said, and another set for concentration camps. You could
be eating the most awful glop out of a tin can or a soap dish, but you were to
be as refined as the royalty who lived in
' Mary Taylor Previte, "Legacy of Trust,"
Children and
youth were not the only students at Weihsien camp. Among the internees were
distinguished professors from a dozen or more schools in east
During our years
in camp, news from the outside world came to us principally from three sources.
The first was the Peking Chronicle, an English language newspaper which old subscribers
among the internees continued to receive. Under the Japanese puppet regime this
paper was strictly a propaganda vehicle with regular "news" of the
A more reliable source of news was a fellow internee, a White Russian, who was a skilled radio technician and called upon to keep radios of Japanese officers in repair. After fixing the radios, he of course "tested" them and in the process was able to glean regular war news from Allied shortwave broadcasts.
The third source of information was the coolies who almost daily entered the compound to haul away garbage and empty the reeking cesspools. These gentlemen, for obvious reasons, were given a wide berth by our guards. Significant news from Chinese guerilla bands in the area was carried into camp by these couriers, in their nostrils, mouths or concealed in the loathsome night soil kangs (drums). As internees brought garbage to the coolies at the bins located in each housing area, small wads of paper bearing the precious inscriptions were surreptitiously transferred. Letters were also smuggled out of camp in airtight metal containers dropped into a barrel of fresh sewage!
