The Weixian Internment Camp (), better known historically as the Weihsien Internment Camp, was a Japanese-run internment camp called a "Civilian Assembly Center" in the former (), located near the city of Weifang, Shandong, China. The compound was used by the Japanese during World War II to intern civilians of Allied countries living in North China. The camp operated from March 1943 until October 1945 and more than 2,200 civilians were interned for all or part of the time the camp was open.
The majority of the people in the camp were British, but the population also included American, Canadian, Australian, Italian, Dutch, Belgian, Russian, and other nationalities. Most of the internees were either Christian missionaries or businessmen and their families. More than 350 children were among the internees. The children included the students of Chefoo boarding school, of whom 100 were separated from their parents throughout the war. Weihsien remained in operation until American paratroopers liberated the camp without opposition on 17 August 1945, although the last internee did not leave until October 1945.
Theologian Langdon Gilkey described the experience of an internee at Weihsien. "We suffered no extreme hardships of limb, stomach, or spirit...we were secure and comfortable enough to accomplish in large part the creation and maintenance of a small civilization, but our life was sufficiently close to the margin of survival to reveal the vast difficulties of that task."
Background
In July 1937, Japan invaded China, triggering the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese soon captured Beijing and most of the large cities of China. At that time tens of thousands of Europeans and Americans lived in China, mostly businessmen and Christian missionaries along with a sprinkling of scholars, artists, and White Russian refugees from the communist government of the Soviet Union. Although the U.S. and European governments recommended that their citizens leave China, many stayed on, although impacted by shortages of food and other essentials. On 8 December 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese began to seize the assets and register and monitor the activities of enemy nationals, mostly British and Americans, whose countries were at war with Japan.
The enemy nationals living in Beijing were not interned until March 1943. Enemy nationals were ordered by the Japanese to assemble on 25 March at their embassies and were marched to the railroad station. A crowd of Chinese watched the spectacle of foreigners, laden with all the possessions they could carry, walk to the station, a symbol that "the era of Western dominance" in China was over. A twenty-four hour train ride without food and water carried them to Weihsien where most of them were interned until the end of World War II. When the group of Beijing internees arrived at Weihsien, internees from Qingdao (Tsingtao) and Tianjin (Tientsin) were already there to greet them, as well as a large contingent of Roman Catholic priests and nuns.
A large number of internees arrived from Chefoo (Yantai) in September 1943. They numbered 371 persons, mostly British and including 118 students, ages 6 to 18, of the Chefoo School, a Protestant missionary-supported boarding school. Initially, the Japanese expelled the students and staff from the school and interned them in the city of Chefoo. Later, they moved all the Chefoo internees by ship and train to Weihsien.
Overall, in the countries occupied by Japan during World War II, approximately 125,000 enemy nationals were interned. Of those 125,000, ten percent were in China and Hong Kong. In China, Weihsien was one of the largest internment camps, called "Civilian Assembly Centers" by the Japanese.
Courtyard of the Happy Way Internees at Weihsien were housed in a former Presbyterian mission compound that was called the "Courtyard of the Happy Way" (). The walled compound where the internees lived was from the city of Weihsien. The compound was about the size of a large city block, slightly more than in size. An internee described the dilapidated compound as "bare walls, bare floors, dim electric lights, no running water, primitive latrines, two houses with showers, three huge public kitchens, a desecrated church, and a dismantled hospital." The Japanese guards lived in an adjoining area of better houses, formerly the homes of missionaries. The compound was surrounded by farmland.
Not all of the internees sent to Weihsien remained there. The largest group to leave Weihsien were 438 Roman Catholic priests and nuns who, on 16 August 1943, were transferred out of Weihsien and sent to Beijing where they were confined in their religious houses. A few Catholics elected to stay in Weihsien and would become the cleverest of the camp's black marketers.
In September 1943, 1,525 Americans, Canadians, and Latin Americans were repatriated from Japanese-controlled civilian internment camps in East Asia, including 395 from Weihsien. By agreement with Japan, the prisoners were exchanged for Japanese civilian prisoners of the United States. The Wiehsien repatriates were sent by railroad to Shanghai, where they were loaded aboard the Japanese ship Teia Maru. They departed Shanghai on 19 September and sailed to Goa, a Portuguese colony in India. There, they boarded the Swedish Mercy Ship, Gripsholm, on 19 October and, after several stops to release repatriates, arrived in New York City on 1 December. People chosen for the repatriation voyage were on a list compiled by the U.S. and other governments of priority individuals for repatriation. The majority of those repatriated were missionaries and businessmen working for large American companies.
After the transfers and repatriation, the population in Weihsien consisted of 1,093 British, 202 Americans, 42 Belgians, 28 Dutch, and 58 of other nationalities, of whom 358 were children.. Dissertation. They were joined on 30 December 1943 by 107 Italians who were interned after Italy's surrender to the allies. The Italians were housed in a separate section of Weihsien. The population from then until the camp was abolished was more than 1,500 internees. The largest number of internees were missionaries and businessmen and their families, but the internees were a diverse lot, coming from both the highest echelons of Western society in China and the lowest. Among rich businessmen and pious missionaries were prostitutes, alcoholics, and drug addicts. Several internees were of mixed-blood. A jazz band of four African-Americans and a Filipino guitar player, called "Pineapple," were among the internees.
The Japanese garrison at Weihsien consisted of a commandant, his staff of five, and 30 to 40 guards. However, the Japanese were little present within the camp. The internees were autonomous on most matters with the Japanese issuing orders and fielding requests of the internees through the internee leaders. As the war wore on the Japanese in the Weihsien area were increasingly isolated and surrounded by communist and nationalist guerillas opposed to their occupation of China. After the war, the camp commandant, Mr. Izu, was charged with war crimes, but a former internee leader, Ted McLaren, testified in his defense and Izu was acquitted.
Government and politics Shortly after the arrival of most of the internees in March 1943, the Japanese commandant ordered them to create 9 committees for different functions in the management of the camp. A council of the chairmen of the 9 committees represented the camp in relations with the Japanese. The internees decided that each committee would have four members, representing the four groups of internees in the camp at that time: internees from Beijing, Qingdao, Tianjin, and Catholic clerics. Each committee selected a chairman. Businessmen heading large British and American companies in China dominated the leadership. The Japanese did not allow the internees to select a single overall leader.Langdon Gilkey in his book Shantung Compound used pseudonyms in describing people in the camp. The real names of some of the individuals mentioned in the book are found at
At first the committee members were selected by the self-appointed leaders of the internees, but, after challenges to the legitimacy of their authority, they were selected by elections held every six months for committee chairmen. "While politically we became a democracy," Gilkey said, "economically our society remained completely socialist...all the means of production were managed by representatives of the community as a whole and not by private individuals." The two problems most encountered were "how do you get a lazy man to work?" and the conundrum of how to ensure that a scarce commodity (food) was distributed in a fair and equitable manner to all internees. The distribution of another scarce commodity (housing) was also fraught with difficulty and conflict.
Daily life To survive, the internees created kitchens and a hospital, started a library, and educated their children without desks, chairs, or a classroom and with few books. Since the internment camp was in squalid condition, people from all walks of life came together to cook and help in the kitchens, stoke the ovens, clean the latrines, and perform other tasks.
Sanitation and water Sanitary facilities were inadequate for 1,500 internees. Only 23 pit toilets in four locations were in the compound and the daily line to use them was long. A "Latrine patrol," mostly of Protestant and Catholic missionaries, was created to supervise the use of and to clean the latrines. Eventually Chinese farmers were allowed into the compound to haul away the "night soil" they valued to fertilize their crops. Latrine workers had the right to take a shower every day while most internees were limited to one shower a week. The internees dug several cesspits where internees could deposit the contents of their chamber pots. Some of the more fortunate among the internees paid others, often with a can of coffee, to stand in for them for their shift in the latrines. The often inadequate water supply of the compound came from several wells.
Food Food was the major concern of the internees. Three large kitchens cooked and served meals. The smallest of the three kitchens was allocated to the Italians, and the other two served the remainder of the internees. A small "diet kitchen" fed people with special needs or in the hospital. The internees had four sources of food. The most important was the issue by the Japanese of a small amount of locally procured meat and a more plentiful supply of vegetables such as cabbage, greens, radishes, and eggplants. Each small child received a cup of milk almost daily. A second source was a canteen where people with money could buy luxury items such as fresh fruit and peanut oil procured from local farmers. A monthly loan of 5 dollars called "comfort money" was provided to people of most nationalities among the internees by a Swiss diplomat who periodically visited Weihsien. A third source was the thriving black market (of which more later) and fourth was the arrival and distribution in the camp of food parcels from the American Red Cross (also more later). All these sources dwindled as the war continued and, although there was no starvation, some men lost 50 or more pounds.
The most important item in the diet of the internees was bread which along with tea and vegetable soup, sometimes with a bit of meat, comprised every meal. Prior to the arrival of the internees, the Japanese set up a bakery in the compound and they provided flour. Two elderly Persian bakers were among the internees and they trained a corps of internee bakers to staff the bakery. In 1944 the Japanese reduced the supply of flour and rationing of bread began.
Red Cross food parcels