History of WWII internment camp bonds Westerners, Chinese friends

Returning to 'mother'

After the liberation of the Weihsien concentration camp, most of the former internees returned to their homelands.

However, over the following 80 years, many of them revisited Weifang multiple times, and expressed their special bond with China.

Mary Previte, who was imprisoned in the camp at the age of 9, later became a New Jersey state legislator in the US. When she returned to China in 2005, she knelt down and kissed the ground at Beijing Capital International Airport after her plane touched down.

Previte returned for the 60th anniversary of the camp's liberation. In her speech, she said, "China is our mother. I was born in Kaifeng, Henan. I knelt down and kissed my mother."

"Many of us, friends from around the world, were also born in China. Today, we are back home," she said.

Briton Maida Harris Campbell, 94, was imprisoned in the Weihsien camp between the ages of 13 and 15. She has returned to Weifang five times with her family.

"We would like to thank the Chinese that helped us," she said, adding she hoped the friendship of people from different countries would continue.

"I believe in promoting peace in any way I can," said Campbell, who now resides in Canada.

In 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the camp's liberation, 12 former internees and their descendants, totaling 80 people, gathered at the former camp site, where they left their handprints and their names in English and some even in Chinese.

Due to urban development, most of the site has been replaced by the largest hospital in Weifang.

Xia Baoshu, 93, the former hospital head, has received many former internees visiting the site in the past three to four decades, and has established enduring friendships and trust with many of them.

For decades, he has been dedicated to turning the oral histories of the internees into a book to let more people read about the site's history.

Xia said he and other surviving internees are all willing to record and share the unity and mutual support between the Western civilians and Chinese people.