WWII Internees Still Bound by Experience

Nora Kuttner put flowers in her hair when she was 15.

Her boyfriend, David Bergamini, picked fresh white gardenias for her from a bush as often as he could. He would volunteer to wheel out the garbage wagon just to have an excuse to pass by the bush, which was near the trash disposal site at Camp Holmes, a World War II internment camp for citizens of Allied nations who were living in the Philippines.

Filipinos would stuff the bush with flowers when they knew American prisoners would be passing by.

The gardenias smelled like happiness to Kuttner. They reminded her of freedom--of fried chicken and old library books and other scented luxuries.

Nostalgia was all Kuttner, 73, latched onto for three of her teenage years and all she thought she’d ever have while a prisoner at Camp Holmes, located in Baguio.

Kuttner, now a Fullerton resident, was liberated 55 years ago. Last week, she sent out the 12th annual issue of the Baguio Internee News, a newsletter Kuttner writes at her own expense for the survivors of the camp. There are about 125 names on the mailing list. There used to be 500.

Camp Holmes remains a vivid memory for the former prisoners of war who subscribe to the eight-page newsletter and help produce each issue.

The Baguio Internee News includes a “Folks You Know” section, which keeps tabs on who’s doing what. Like Bob Dyer, who gave up trying to grow roses and is now attempting tomatoes and peppers. Donald Mansell’s manuscript, titled “Angels and the Unseen Conflict,” was just accepted by Pacific Press, and Ralph and Berryl Longway just sold their Maryland condo.

The newsletter also includes reviews of books and videos focusing on World War II.

Kuttner flips through a leather-bound scrapbook that neatly contains her memories of the internment camp--patches of cloth from Japanese soldier uniforms, newspaper clippings and jewelry Bergamini made for her out of coconuts.

Kuttner was 15 when she and nine others of her family and friends piled into a 1939 Buick and willingly drove to the Brent School, where American citizens and other foreigners in the Philippines decided to clump together in case of a Japanese invasion. Her family thought it would be safer than waiting. They had enough food in the trunk to last three days.

But Japanese soldiers forced them into Holmes, where Kuttner and the other foreigners were kept prisoner for three years and six weeks.

“We basically had just a little overnight bag. . . . We lost our pets,” Kuttner said. “We totally lost everything.”

She ate molded rice flecked with bugs and stones for three years. She washed herself with cold water and soap “that felt like acid.”

Donald Mansell also survived Camp Holmes and now lives in Nampa, Idaho. He kept a diary during his last year in the camp. To conserve paper, he divided each line into four and wrote very small.

Mansell hid the diary in the rafters in his barracks. He said the prisoners were forbidden to have them, but many did anyway.

“My memory [of the camp] is still very vivid,” Mansell said. “Probably more vivid than some.”

At the camp, Kuttner and Mansell were taught physics, history, geography and other subjects, despite children being forbidden to learn history and geography, Kuttner said.

“They [Japanese officials] maybe thought it could be propaganda,” she said.

But the teachers--prisoners who were former teachers or professionals outside the camp--taught the two subjects anyway. They called history “biography” and geography “composition.”

“Any time a guard would come into the schoolroom we would change the subject,” Kuttner said. “I feel we had a good education.”

Mansell’s sister-in-law Mary Mansell, another former Camp Holmes prisoner, didn’t think she would survive.

“I didn’t know if I’d ever get out or not. . . . As hard as it was sometimes, I learned a lot of things that made me more prepared for life, like what really matters.”

Mary Mansell, 75, lives with her husband, Charles, in San Juan Capistrano. They met at Camp Holmes and married there. A pastor who was also a prisoner performed the ceremony.

The camp finally was liberated by American troops on Feb. 4, 1945.

The former internees have had occasional reunions. At their gathering in 1989, they agreed that they would like to stay in touch more regularly. Kuttner offered to take on the task of writing a newsletter.

“You’d think that after living with the same people for three years, you’d never want to see them again,” Donald Mansell said, “But we’re just like one big family.”

Mary Mansell anxiously waits for Kuttner’s newsletter to arrive in her mailbox.

“There are fewer and fewer of us every year,” she said, “but it’s nice to keep in touch that way.”