Forgive but never forget

By Zhao Xu (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-08 07:41

Ninety-year-old Barbara Anslow says Hong Kong represents all that is great, sad and unexpected in her life. It was where she bade farewell to her father once and forever; it was where she spent more than three years as a prisoner of war, and it was where she learned to open her mind, her heart and her soul.

Barbara Anslow vividly remembers the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong. [Edmond Tang]

Anslow, who now lives in Scotland, visited her former island home last month with her five senior children in tow.

"I want to take another look at Hong Kong. The trip may well be my last visit," she says calmly, without any remorse.

Anslow's Hong Kong story began in 1938, when her engineer father was posted to the Naval Dockyard in Hong Kong. At this time, the rumblings of a major war in Europe and in Asia could be felt and by 1940, the threat of a full-scale invasion became serious.

In July, 1940, Anslow, her mother and two sisters, heeded the call of the colonial government and fled to Australia with thousands of others. But while waiting in the Philippines for a ship to Australia, the family received tragic news.

"My father had passed away of a heart attack," Anslow says.

The family immediately returned to Hong Kong, despite the government's efforts to send them back.

"If we went to Australia, we would have to start all over again," says Anslow. "So we decided to take the chances."

In the early morning of December 8, 1941, several hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan dropped bombs on the land of Hong Kong.

Anslow hid in the tunnels underneath Government House. During the night, she slept at small hotels in Central.

The Battle of Hong Kong, lasted for 18 days and ended on Christmas Day.

"The Japanese drove us out of our accommodation and packed us into a Chinese brothel-hotel, where we stayed for about three weeks. Later we arrived at Stanley by riverboat on January 21, 1942," says Anslow, referring to one of the major war-time camp sites, on the southwestern part of the island.

While other camps opened for Allied soldiers, the Stanley Internment Camp was mainly for "enemy civilians". It would be the family's new home for the next three years and eight months.

"There were all sorts of rumors as to what would happen to us. But believe it or not, we somehow felt relieved - the battle was over and we were still alive," Anslow says.

Life was hard but lack of food was the biggest challenge.

The family had a tiny plot of land inside the campgrounds where they grew peanuts.

"But we never waited for them to be ready, in case someone else would might come and take it," says Anslow laughing.

As chronic malnutrition began to take its toll, Anslow's mother lost almost 30 kg.

Food had become the most valuable commodity in the camp and had replaced roses as tokens of love.

"My younger sister Mabel befriended a man who happened to work in the camp kitchen. One day, he asked her to come out, pulled her to the side, and with his greasy hand handed her a lump of liver, which he had been hiding in his trouser pocket," recalls the old lady, shaking slightly with laughter. Mabel later married the man.

"The mix of men and women added a human element to the inhuman situation. And women had always had a softening effect."

Romance blossomed, weddings took place and many children were born in the camp. Anslow says she had the honor of being a bridesmaid at an English girl's wedding. Camp life taught her how to keep an open mind.

"British, before the war, kept very much to themselves," she says.

"But in the camp we had different nationalities - the British, Americans, Dutch, with Russians being sent in every alternate day."

More than 2,000 men and women, including 200 children, lived at the camp under crammed conditions. About 25 people shared one bathroom and chores such as sweeping the corridor and cleaning the toilets, were carried out by all.

Anslow's younger sister Mabel was too weak for heavy work, so she mended clothes for fellow prisoners.

There was not much cruelty in the camp, says Anslow, but anyone who "broke the rules" was severely punished.

"Some British officers listened to radio broadcasting, which was banned in the camp.

"They were later taken away and were never seen again -probably having been executed by the Japanese," she says.

When the Allied victory did arrive, airplanes flew over the camp and dropped supplies.

"They were flying so low that we could even see the crew's faces," says Anslow. "It was our first glimpse of any free man."

After the war, Anslow penned a novel based on her life at the camp. The Young Colonials was based on her diary, which she wrote using papers from the camp hospital where she worked as a typist. A copy of the diary is now kept at the Imperial War Museum in London.

The family left Hong Kong for Britain in September 1945, only to return nine months later. They stayed until the three sisters retired in the late 1950s and early 60s and moved back to the UK.

Anslow has returned to Hong Kong twice, including a 1987 visit with her husband Frank, who she first met in the camp. Frank passed away in 2003.

All her children were born in Hong Kong, and on their recent return found the city "vibrant and energetic".

But Anslow can't help see the great changes. "You can hardly see any hills looking down from the harbor - all the concrete towers block the view," she says.

"The sight is overpowering."

She visited the site of the old camp and old memories flooded back. "Stanley is probably the only place that has remained unchanged," she says. "The quarters we stayed at and the rooms we lived in are exactly the same as they used to be."

At the nearby Stanley Military Cemetery, which was the only burial ground for people who died in the camp, a memorial monument has been erected. She looks at the old tombstones, which are still in their original shape.

"I know half of the people here," says Anslow, gazing for a long time at one grave. The inscription reads: "In that rich earth, a richer dust concealed."

The memory still hurts. People were destroyed and lives were marred. But for Anslow and her family, love was lost and recovered.

Both of her sisters, Olive and Mabel, were separated with their boyfriends, who were sent to military camps in Kowloon and later to Japan. One of the men died.

Olive married the brother of a girl she met in the camp while Mabel married a fellow internee - the boy who gave her the precious lump of liver.

For the past six decades, Anslow has been living with that history, and never feels the need "to put it behind".

"My mother was so forgiving - she has long forgiven the Japanese for what they had done to her," says youngest son Finbar Anslow.

His mother has the last word. "You only hurt yourself if you don't forgive."