Gloria Rose (left) and sister Dorothy hold an old photo taken at the Holy Spirit School during the Japanese occupation. The sisters fondly remember how the Filipinos cared for them during the war. (Photo by HAROLD ORARA)

It was a much awaited homecoming for two sisters from the United States who were former internees in a Japanese internment camp during World War II.

Returning to the Philippines 69 years after the war, sisters Dorothy Rose Jiron, 81, and Gloria Rose, 67, visited the country last Wednesday to reminisce their family’s past experiences at the University of Santo Tomas, which served as an internment camp for at least 3,000 foreigners during the Japanese occupation.

The sisters, who stayed in the country for a week, devoted their stay, visited the sights which sheltered them during the war including UST, where they were detained for 37 months, and St. Luke’s Hospital, where Gloria was born.

At the UST museum inside the university’s Main Building, which was recently declared a national treasure, the sisters found their names listed on the exhibit which showed the history of the University during the Japanese occupation.

“We became a part of history. It was our homecoming,” Dorothy said during an interview with the Manila Bulletin.

For Dorothy, it was her third time in the country after first visiting in 1981 together with her mother, Ada Phyllis Rose, to be reacquainted with the nuns, the nurses and the doctors who took care of them.

Among those who cared for the Rose family was Dr. Fe Del Mundo, who was a Red Cross volunteer in UST and who later founded the first pediatric hospital in the Philippines.

Meanwhile, it was Gloria’s first return after the war.

The Rose family arrived in the country on December 7, 1941 after escaping from China by ship. Upon their arrival in Manila Bay, at a time when American forces were already fleeing the country, their ship was destroyed along with their luggage and they got stranded in Manila as refugees.

With only the clothes on their back, the Roses were cared for by nuns in their convent and later in a resort owned by another foreigner. They were later captured by the Japanese and sent to UST, where they were detained until it was liberated by American forces in 1945.

In the early years at the camp, when it was still controlled by the English-speaking Japanese Civilian Committee, the Roses together with other Americans, Englishmen and other foreign prisoners were treated with civility. They were even allowed to form their own committee to communicate their sentiments with their Japanese captors, the sisters narrated.

“The civilian committee was nice. They would even treat us with films and other social events in front of the Main Building,” Dorothy said.

Their mother, who was pregnant upon their arrival in the Philippines, eventually gave birth to Gloria at the Saint Luke’s Hospital and was then allowed to live in the Holy Ghost School (Now the College of the Holy Spirit in Mendiola) with the nuns and Red Cross volunteers. But after the school’s funds ran out, the Roses were sent back to UST.

Inside the camp, the men lived in the University’s old education building together with their Japanese guards, while the women and children lived at the annex of the gymnasium.

During that time, the sisters said their mother did small laundry chores inside the camp while Dorothy, who was the eldest among the six Rose children, served as a nurse aide.

As the war progressed, control over the camp was eventually handed to the Japanese military. Life in UST worsened as their food supplies dwindled.

“Food became so scarce that some of the refugees, including my father and younger brother, developed beri-beri and became so weak they couldn’t walk,” Dorothy said.

“They would feed us with congee and gruel which was sometimes mixed with worms or maggots to give us some protein,” Gloria said.

Japanese abuse and atrocities also became prevalent as American forces started gaining ground against the Japanese Imperial Army.

“Everyone was required to bow whenever the Japanese would pass. If you don’t, they would slap you. You could also see bodies pierced with bayonets and headless babies on the streets,” Dorothy said.

“There’s something traumatizing about the experience. We never talk about it even among ourselves.”

Despite living in constant fear of the Japanese soldiers, the Roses managed to cope inside the University, until the camp’s liberation.

“On the eve before the liberation, we could hear the Filipinos outside the University’s wall saying, ‘the Yanks were coming, the Yanks were coming’,” Dorothy said.

“We never saw any Filipino inside the camp, but we knew they were always around us. They always have the chance to leave us, but they said no we’re going to stick with you to the end,” she added.

After the war, the Roses went to California where their family settled. However, the sisters never forgot about the country which became their home during the war.

“We would go to the Filipino communities (in California) because we would like to educate them on what their fathers and grandfathers did for the Americans, but they would say they know about it and they were not interested about it,” Gloria said.