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.