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business going again although they got the Chinese Chamber of Co merce started and brought every possible bit of pressure to bear on them to try and at least restore some sort of normality to the town, They were very anxious to obtain rice, and made numerous alluring offers to the Chinese if they would cooperate in getting it in.
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Discriminatory rules and regulations appeared during May and June against all whites of whatever nationality. went round that it was to be Oriental against Occidental. Russians and other nationals having shops in the Central district, particularly in the boucester Building, were ordered to evacuate by a certain date.
As I reme÷ber it the end of June. Their premises were to be taken over by Japanese or Chinese. Japane se women, a few of them, appeared in the streets, women of the family type, although Mr. Oda had told me that it was unsafe for him to bring his wife and daughter from Japan, this was in April, because there was still fighting just outside Kowloon.
Conditions in the Army and Volunteer Concentration camps were a matter of conjecture. The women who went there with parcels for their men were not allowed to leave anything, this went on for weeks and weeks. Men could be seen, at a considerable distance, and sometimes recognized by their wives. In June a Mrs. interaon, whose husband was a Dane, in the Volunteers, came to tea with me, with some friends. She was in tears and said, "Today I saw my
husband, could just see him, standing by the barbed wire fence, it was so far, and we were not allowed to cross the road where I could have seen him better. OH! He was thin, like a boy, a fine big man he was! no shirt, and all his hair was ahaved off. Then the guards came and drove me away, they would not let pass again.
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A very courageous diviss nurse who was working at the French liospital whom I knew well gave me a good deal of information about things. she had been governess for a number of years with the family of Sir Herbert Phillips, and I had known her for a long time. She was a Tine big woman inches taller than the average Japanese soldier. I have seen her return from a trip to Cham sui pe in a blue rage, having been inaccently searched and had her face, slapped, for no reason that any one could discover. che had several friends in that camp whom she was trying to supply with food and necessities. She had found a fairly decent Japanese officer on duty at Cham Sui po and had asked him when it would be allowed to deliver parcels to the prisoners. He told her that the "Family quarrel" had not been wettled as yet, and he could not say.
He seemed kind, but another officer who listened to the conversation interrupted, and shouted at her to get out, ani not to
sand that they you return Zonce along the road front which the $7 foñer could be seen. Still she persisted and went every week, rarely returning without something having been done to her that was unpleasant. Pace slapping was the usual order of the day for all the women who went there. The little French girl who had been with us at St.Stephen's had two friends, one at Chẩm Sul po and the other at North Point. she was slapped and knocked about often and had many stories of cruelties and indignities infliated on other women who went to the se places. She took. it all so quietly, so patiently; she was only twenty two, and a pretty slight little thing, with no family, her parenta were dead, and her sister had gone to Australia, and the brother in law was in Stanley Prison. She had no job, ne money,
se
and was living with the Jamaican Eurasians in Kloon, who still had a little money and a flat, where sight other refugees were living with them. AB Japanese officers had discovered them, and were · coming there for "massage",so Yvonne itold me, I wonder what will become of her. She was a brave child and so uncomplaining. She was able to draw a ration of rice and flour, which helped a little.
Father Joy came to see me regularly, he stopped in whenever he was visiting at the French Convent. He emphasized particularly that the plight of third nationals was worse if anything than the people in stanley prison. They had no one at all to take any interest in their condition. The one bright spot was that the
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