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People
visit photographic exhibition named "Forgotten Camp – Exhibition on
Shenyang World War II Allied Prisoners Camp" at the St George's Hall in
Liverpool, the UK on Nov 6，2015.[Photo by Chen Shan/chinadaily.com.cn]
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An exhibition curated by the Shenyang World War II Prisoners of War
Camp Museum opened its door to the public in the historic UK port city
of Liverpool today, part of the UK-China Year of Culture.
At a formal open ceremony yesterday, Fan Lihong, Curator of the
Museum, told a group of UK and Chinese guests at the formal opening that
the exhibition, containing a wide range of photographs, sketches and
other images of life in the camp , sends a peaceful message from the
people of China to the rest of the world.
"I sincerely hope this exhibition will serve as an opportunity to
establish contact with the relevant museums and archives, as well as
veteran POWs and their family members," she said.
Shenyang Camp, once known as Mukden camp, is one of the best
preserved of the 200 or so Japanese camps built to house Allied
prisoners throughout occupied Assia.
It housed over 2,000 inmates from the US, UK, Australia, France and
the Netherlands, and barely 1,600 survived when it was liberated in
August 1945. The prisoners, who were forced to work in nearby Japanese
factories, endured a regime of hunger, extreme cold, beatings and
executions in the three-and-a-half years the camp was open.
Alan Joy, a UK resident whose late father Ronald Joy was a British
Army gunner held in the camp after being captured at the fall of
Singapore, paid tribute to local Chinese people, both in Singapore and
Shenyang, who risked their lives to help prisoners with surreptitious
offers of food and hard-to-find medical supplies.
He presented a selection of papers and artefacts his father had
carefully preserved during his captivity, offering them to the Shenyang
Museum "because that is the right place for them."
Shen Peili, Minister of the Chinese Embassy in London, officially
opened the exhibition, which runs for seven days and will also visit
France, Holland and the US. She paid tribute to the memory of the Allied
soldiers who fought and died alongside Chinese soldiers in the fight
against the Japanese invaders,
Liverpool, where many Allied troops embarked on their way to fight
the Japanese in Asia, is staging the exhibition in the atmospheric
prison cells beneath St. George’s Great Hall, which was once a court of
justice.
