Elizabeth Choy
Japanese guards ushered Elizabeth into a tiny cell, measuring 10 by 12 feet, so crowded with prisoners--most of them Chinese--there was no room to sit down. Everyone was kneeling or squatting. It was absolutely silent. No one was allowed to speak. Bugs crawled across the filthy floor.
Almost every day, Elizabeth was taken out of the cell, interrogated, beaten, and brutally tortured. The Kempeitai wanted her to admit she was anti-Japanese and pro-British. She always denied it. "I'm just wanting to help those in need, never mind what race," she would say. "If you should be in the same position, you are my friend, I would help you also."
Between beatings the Kempeitai questioned Elizabeth about other things...She denied all knowledge of these accusations. But each day, she was threatened with death if she didn't confess.
"I've told you the truth," she would reply. "I cannot tell you any more."
"Then we are going to execute you."
"All right," she would say. "If I have to die for telling the truth, I will die."
From "Elizabeth Choy: "Justice Will Prevail" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater
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