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.

For John Stanley, a history professor at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, the journey into this forgotten history began in 1991, when he accompanied his father, Charles A. Stanley, on a visit to the Weihsien Internment Camp site.

Charles A. Stanley was interned at Weihsien with his parents in 1943 when he was just 10 months old. He remained there until US soldiers and a Chinese translator liberated the camp in 1945.

But this part of his family's history had been shrouded in silence. "The camp wasn't discussed when I was growing up and, according to my father, it didn't come up much with his mother or father either," John Stanley explained. "I believe that many have left that part of their lives behind and do not wish to engage with it."

Stanley's own journey to uncover this history began in 1991 during a visit to the site to dedicate a memorial to Eric Liddell, the 1924 Olympic 400-meter champion who died of illness in the camp. Liddell was one of at least 31 internees who died during imprisonment due to a severe shortage of supplies and medical care.

"It was that trip that started my interest in studying China and East Asia more generally," said Stanley. "In all of my research, I learned much more about the makeup of the internees and the role of the local Chinese population."

The camp was set up in retaliation for the US internment of Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Over 2,000 civilians from 25 Allied nations were rounded up across China and imprisoned in the largest internment camp in Asia.

The internees include some prominent figures like Arthur W. Hummel Jr, who later became the second US ambassador to China. Hummel managed to escape before the camp's liberation with the aid of local Chinese.

Stanley emphasized that the help from the local Chinese "served to keep up the spirits of the internees as news became harder to find during the later years of the war".

Most notable were their efforts to communicate with the internees and set up a 'Black Market' for foodstuffs they could not get at the camp store, or they were short on, he said.

"Eggs were the most famous, but I believe that at one point, a live chicken was thrown over the camp wall," he added.

Touching story

Zhang Zhiren, a Europe-based writer who spent years researching and writing a book on the camp, said: "The bravery of the local Chinese, who risked their lives to help the foreign internees, is the most touching part of the story."

Zhang's book, Weihsien West Civilians Concentration Camp: 1943-1945, documents the cruel treatment of Allied civilians in the camp, their efforts to survive in extreme conditions and the acts of bravery and kindness of local Chinese to help the foreigners.

Zhang highlighted the story of Zhang Xingtai, a local villager who worked as a latrine cleaner in the camp. "The Japanese thought of him as just an ordinary farmer, not a threat, but didn't realize he became a 'bridge of information'," Zhang said. The internees were cut off from news of the outside. "Risking their lives, Zhang Xingtai and his son brought news from the outside in and smuggled information out. The news of Japan's defeat was passed on by them at great risk."

Despite their own hardships, the local people gathered food to send to the starving internees, risking everything to cross the Japanese-controlled barbed wire and electric fences, Zhang said. He shared the tragic story of a local child who was electrocuted on the camp's perimeter fence while trying to deliver food, with the Japanese forbidding the retrieval of the body.

"The people of Weifang didn't care what nationality the internees were," Zhang said. "They only knew that people were suffering and that they had to help. This kindness transcended war and national boundaries."

Zhang stressed the importance of remembering the history of the Weihsien Internment Camp. "The memories of the camp are so painful that for decades, survivors were almost silent. As time passes, the survivors of the camp are dwindling, and fewer and fewer people know about this history."

His book is an attempt to rescue this shared memory, said Zhang. "Eighty years ago, Chinese people and foreign nationals helped each other through thick and thin. This story is the best footnote to the concept of a community of shared future for humanity."

The history of the Weihsien Internment Camp led the International Cities of Peace, a nonprofit organization promoting the global peace movement, to designate Weifang as the 308th International City of Peace in 2021, making it the second such city in China after Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province.

In celebration of Weifang's fifth anniversary as an International City of Peace, J. Frederick Arment, chair of the International Cities of Peace, said Weifang has consistently moved forward in the profound and healing steps of building peace from historical trauma with future hope.

In 2024, as China and the US marked the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations, the story of the Weihsien Internment Camp made its way to San Francisco in the form of a special exhibition. Stanley also attended the opening ceremony as a representative of the descendants of former camp internees.

"I believe their (Weifang's) efforts to maintain the buildings and their efforts to create a traveling exhibition that went to San Francisco show a commitment to raising awareness about war and its consequences," Stanley said.

Speaking of the relevance of the spirit of peace from the Weihsien Internment Camp history, Stanley expressed hope that this history would encourage diplomacy and the use of international institutions to resolve conflicts rather than resorting to violence or other pressure tactics.

Contact the writers at yangran1@chinadaily.com.cn