Subject: Re: Contact Enquiry

Dear Leopold,

Thank you so much for your swift response. I will message the contact, whose details you have kindly given me. We’re hoping to go over in the summer of 2025 so we might indeed make the 80th anniversary commemoration. That would be quite something. Our middle son has decided to teach himself Chinese so he can say thank you in person.

The website which you curate is a wonderful thing. Thank you so much for putting it all together. There is some quite amazing eyewitness testimony there as well as a marvellous range of documentary evidence from the time – I’m amazed you’re able to do all of this. It’s such a great collection.

We’ll be very happy to write for the website when we go over, and send photos etc.

As well as the family connection, I’m a history teacher by trade so this is all quite fascinating. I was reading about Eddie and the other soldiers who parachuted in just the other day. My wife’s uncle remembers watching them (or perhaps later paratroopers) come down from on high. It must have been amazing for you to meet him.

I think I understand what you mean when you refer to the camp as both memory and trauma. Your poor sister. At the other end of the age range, I know that it affected my wife’s grandfather terribly and never really left him.

So I’ll leave you be for the moment and rest assured I’ll become a keen student of the website.

Just to add, I’m copying my wife in. Emma is named after her grandmother. And thank you also for putting us in contact with her aunt Kay’s oldest friend Christine!! Emma will be sure to message her.

With grateful thanks,
Paul

Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2024 12:51 PM
To: Leopold Pander ; Jeannette Ley

Subject: Re: Fwd: Contact Enquiry

Dear Leopold: thank you so much for forwarding Paul Kilbride's request to you.

I was thrilled to read his request. I have just replied to him as my parents and the Allans were great friends in Tientsin and Weihsien and kept in touch for many years after the war as well. Paul's aunt Kay is one of my oldest friends.

You continue to do great work. I don't think you realise how much pleasure this Weihsien site gives to those of us who are still left ... and now to the following generations.

Much love and much gratitude.
Christine
Talbot Sancton

From: Leopold PANDER
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2024 10:56 AM
To: 'Paul Kilbride' ; 'Leopold PANDER'

Subject: RE: Contact Enquiry

Dear Paul,

Thanks for contacting us 😊
You can certainly send a message to: ldybgs@163.com . → A message that will arrive directly to the responsible persons in charge of the Weihsien Museum in Weifang.
They will, of course be delighted to add a new artefact to all they already have exposed in their Weihsien Museum and will certainly be very honoured by your visit in Weifang for the 80-year's celebrations of our liberation by the Americans.

I was personally present there 10 years ago for the 70-year celebrations with my sister Janette (and her husband). A very enjoyable moment indeed. We even met one of our liberators: Eddie Wang. He must be 100 years old now (...) hope he's still fine and fit and in good health today. We also sympathized with Eric Liddell's daughters ― great ladies ― they will remember me as: Baby Face !! Ha! Ha!

I am now in my eighty-fourth, and my sister three years older and with regret, we have to say that ― long distance travelling is finished for us. So, I will not be present in Weihsien next year.

May we ask you to be our "journalist" and tell us all of the next year ceremonies for me to transfer on our Weihsien-paintings' website just as I did 10 years ago: GoTo →
http://weihsien-paintings.org/70YearsAfter/index.php

P.S.
My little sister MaryLou was also born in Weihsien ― July 1944. Weihsien was a memory and a trauma for her all her life. She died in 2000.
http://www.weihsien-paintings.org/pander/pages/page03.htm

Thanks in advance,
Best regards,
Leopold

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Kilbride
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2024 10:00 AM
To: weihsien@proximus.be

Subject: Contact Enquiry

Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Paul Kilbride and my father in law, Robert Jeremy Allan, was born in the internment camp at Weihsien on June 28 1944.

His brother, Douglas, and his sister, Kay, were interned there with his parents Emma and John. Emma was a nurse and John an accountant.

Sadly, Jeremy passed away in 2022.

Jeremy’s daughter, Emma, is very keen to visit where her father was born. It was one thing Jeremy was going to do as well, and alas that can no longer happen.

So we are planning to visit the camp and museum next year. We are also in possession of what Jeremy believed to be the camp commandant’s walking stick, so we would wish to present this to the museum and also add our thanks to the thanks of so many survivors - and their descendants - to the local Chinese population.

My question is, do you have the contact details of anybody in the museum or the local tourist office who we might get in touch with to arrange a visit and to present the walking stick to?

With kind regards,
Paul
Paul Kilbride

Sent from my iPhone

From: 乐道院潍县集中营博物馆
Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2024 10:08 AM
To: 潍县绘画 ; Leopold_Pander

Subject: 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of the Weihsien concentration camp

Dear Leopold

Next year will be the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Weihsien concentration camp. The museum plans to hold a series of commemorative activities and sincerely invites the survivors and their descendants to reunite in Weifang and the former site of the Weihsien concentration camp. The plan is to hold the event around August 17th, but the specific time has not been determined yet. We will keep in touch with you in a timely manner and send you the invitation and specific time. If you are interested in participating in next year's commemorative activities, please reply as soon as possible so that we can proceed with the next steps of work arrangements.

Looking forward to you and your family's arrival. If you have any questions, please contact us.

With regards,
Weihsien West Civilians Concentration Camp Site Museum

ldybgs@163.com
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