Several months after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, westerners living in China were sent to internment camps by the occupying Japanese forces. CCTV’s Liu Li spoke to a survivor of life in one of the camps.

Weihsien Internment Camp in Shandong province was the largest Japanese camp in China during World War II. About 2,250 Americans, British, and Australians living in northern China were brought there in early 1943. They were interned for almost three years.

The detainees of Weihsien did not face the terrible fate of many of Japan’s prisoners of war, but sanitary conditions were poor, the winters were harsh, and there was an overall lack of food and medical care.

The detainees were determined to continue on with life until their release, which finally came on August 17, 1945 when the U.S. arranged a rescue plan.

A look inside Japanese WWII internment camps in China

Several months after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, westerners living in China were sent to internment camps by the occupying Japanese forces. CCTV's Liu Li spoke to a survivor of life in one of the camps.