The Iron Gates of Santo Tomas
The Firsthand Account of an American Couple Interned by the Japanese in Manila, 1942-1945
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When Manila fell in January 1942, Emily Van Sickle and her husband Charles were among the thousands of American and European civilians who were trapped in the Philippines. The foreigners were interned in the 48-acre campus of Santo Tomas University, offered to the Japanese by Dominican priests; no other place in the city was large enough to keep them. Santo Tomas was "a made-to-order concentration camp." It was centrally located and spacious enough, although there were few washing and toilet facilities and no sleeping quarters, and, in the beginning, no food except what the prisoners had broug...
When Manila fell in January 1942, Emily Van Sickle and her husband Charles were among the thousands of American and European civilians who were trapped in the Philippines. The foreigners were interned in the 48-acre campus of Santo Tomas University, offered to the Japanese by Dominican priests; no other place in the city was large enough to keep them. Santo Tomas was "a made-to-order concentration camp." It was centrally located and spacious enough, although there were few washing and toilet facilities and no sleeping quarters, and, in the beginning, no food except what the prisoners had brought with them. This is a fascinating, detailed and insightful account of life in a civilian concentration camp where each day saw a battle for survival. The prisoners -- 5,000 at the outset -- thrown on their own resources for food and the simplest creature comforts, reflected human nature at its best and at its worst, as might be expected.
