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REVS. J. SMITH AND WM. DOWNS
Fathers Downs and Madison, with Sister Paul and four of her Sisters, journeyed on by bus to Liuchow, then by train to Kweilin.
At Kweilin, we met the members of the first group and here left Sister Paul and her Sisters. As it was the time of the Chinese New Year, we had to remain in Kweilin for about a week, then Fathers Downs, Siebert, Gaiero and Madison set out by train and bus on the long hike to Kaying. We reached Kaying on the 19th of February, just one month to the day after stepping aboard the steamer at Hong Kong, and just in time to attend Kaying's First Synod. From Kaying, a few hours by bus brought us to Siaoloc, where the Language School once more resumed its oft-interrupted classes, and here at Siaoloc this chronicle of the wanderings of the Stanley Maryknollers comes to a glorious end! Laus Deo!
(By Father William J. Downs)
PART III: FATHER MEYER ON INTERNMENT: JANUARY 12, 1942 - AUGUST 15, 1945
Nearly sixty priests, Brothers and Sisters were interned at Stanley in January, 1942. Within a year, all but three priests and four Sisters had left on exchange repatriation or been released into Hong Kong and gone back to their Missions. In September, 1943, occurred the last repatriation, when Father Murphy, a Canadian missioner who was ill, and the four remaining Sisters left for Canada.
A special cable had come through the Swiss Consul in Tokyo, "All Maryknollers are to leave occupied areas." When Father Hessler and I told Mr. Maejima, the Camp Superintendent, that we chose to stay, he seemed nonplussed. Weren't we ordered by the cable to return? We explained that in the Catholic Church such an order was always contingent on providing for the needs of souls, and that since the Italian Fathers of Hong Kong were not permitted to come into the Camp, we had volunteered already a year ago to remain.
Nothing more was said, but our names did not appear on the repatriation lists, and we learned later that Mr. Maejima and his colleagues of the Hong Kong Foreign Affairs Office had been impressed by the Catholic position.