By YANG RAN in Beijing and ZHAO RUIXUE in JINAN |
HK edition |
While the name Auschwitz echoes through history as a grim symbol of Nazi atrocities during World War II, another camp, half a world away in China's Shandong province, holds a story less known.
In the city of Weifang, once known as Weixian or Weihsien, stands the Courtyard of the Happy Way. Established as a church, school and hospital complex by a US missionary in 1882, Japanese forces converted it into the Weihsien Internment Camp to imprison foreign nationals in China during WWII.
Unlike the well-documented concentration camps of Europe, the camp in China has remained largely obscure, even for the families of those who endured it.
