The Iron Gates of Santo Tomás

the long version

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 the Dominican priests; no other place in the city was large enough to keep them. "Many times during the years that followed," Mrs Van Sickle says, "these brave and generous priests interceded with. the Japanese on our behalf; sometimes their pleas were heeded." The university grounds were enclosed on three sides by high concrete walls and iron bars; Santo Tomas was "a made-to-order concentration camp". It was attractively landscaped, centrally located and spacious enough - but there were few washing and toilet facilities, no sleeping quarters - only classrooms furnished with desks and chairs - and, in the beginning, no food except what the prisoners had been able. to bring with them. It was six months before the Japanese gave them even a meagre food allowance - 25 cents a day for adults. In Santo Tomas, Emily Van Sickle says, the prisoners "learned many things, some funny, some tragic, that are no part of a normal college curriculum." 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. This is a sensitive and informative book, as gripping and readable as any tale of adventure.