Behind Enemy Lines: A Great Migration in Times of War
By Brandon Lopez
Introduction
The first time I met Michael Sellheim was on a camping trip to Mammoth, California with his family back in 2016. His wife, daughters, and grandchildren would tell me his fascinating story around the campfire. I was taken back with awe, in discovering that a man so old and fragile who could barely speak had lived nearly a century of life in a critical time in world history.
I grew up with his grandchildren who I met in my first year of high school. Throughout the years, my relationship with his grandchildren had grown to where I would be welcomed as a member of the family and I would have the privilege of calling Sellheim by the name “Papa.”
Through our weekly dinners with the Sellheim family, I had the pleasure to learn more about Papa’s historical life and have the honor of sharing it with others, as Papa would gently mumble at the table, “Please remember me.”
Origins
All aboard the Empress of Japan! It was late in the summer of 1938 in the hot and humid Philippines when Michael H. Sellheim, 11 years old at the time, packed his winter clothes as he realized he would no longer be in the tropics.
Sellheim and his older brother George would go from a comfortable life of what felt like an endless vacation in Singapore to being prisoners of war in Shanghai during WWII. Sellheim’s journey across East Asia to the United States would separate him from his father for nearly a decade, in what Sellheim said was a traumatic experience for a child to endure.
Sellheim was born October 8, 1927 in Singapore to a British father, Cyril Von Sellheim, and a Lithuanian mother, Helen Gedroits. They lived in the British territory of Singapore since his father worked for a rubber company.
While his childhood was comfortable, it was not without pain: When Sellheim was 7 years old, his mother Helen died in a car accident.
Cyril would remarry a year later to a woman named Mara de Silla.
Cyril communicated with the boys in Russian since he was raised in St. Petersburg, Russia. After remarrying, Cyril informed the boys that they would need to learn English, as they were told they would be moving to the Philippines, “Where everyone spoke English,” Cyril said.
Cyril’s work obligations grew as his job in the rubber company required extensive traveling. Accompanied by Mara’s desire to attend college in Paris, France, she offered to take Michael with her.
Cyril refused. He believed separating the boys would be too much for the brothers who were still grieving the loss of their mother.
The couple settled on what Sellheim said was, “the most profound separation from home.” The boys were being shipped off to complete their education at a Catholic school in Hong Kong.
The year was 1938, the boys were fresh off the Empress of Japan wandering in strange lands. The boys were still growing accustomed to life without their father; complete strangers to a foreign land who struggled to learn Cantonese.
On September 1, 1939, World War II was declared. Sellheim and his brother George were soon informed they would be on the move again.
This time they were sent to another Catholic boarding school in Shanghai, China.
Behind Enemy Lines — Lunghua Civil Assembly Centre
War in Shanghai began in the early morning of December 8, 1941. Word had just gotten out that Pearl Harbor had been struck by the Japanese and Shanghai was next.
The Sellheim brothers were awakened by the sounds of bombs dropping and the violent ring of gunfire. Cyril often sent the boys letters but the letters stopped coming and the payments for school soon ended, now it all made sense.
A year after the attacks on Shanghai, the Japanese had conquered China and the Sellheim brothers were registered British subjects. They received orders from Japan’s Emperor Hirohito to be interned at the Lunghua Civil Assembly Center.
Sellheim detailed how his first impression of the internment camp was it being a large compound surrounded by barbed wire and Japanese guards patrolling the perimeter.
The camp rules were simple: do not walk close to the fence, obey the guards’ orders, follow curfew hours, and do not try to escape or you will be shot.
Life in the camp was not as bad as initially perceived. The Sellheim brothers were able to take classes in engineering, play recreational sports, and were given a decent food supply for the most part.
Everyone was assigned specific duties within the camp, George was recruited for the heavy-duty labor crew, which involved picking up trash and moving heavy equipment. Michael was tasked with kitchen duty, which involved stirring rice or porridge for breakfast in a large bowl that he called a gao.
As the war dragged on, the conditions worsened. There was a shortage of food supply and the food lacked quality as time had passed.
The prisoners grew restless, few tried to escape as some were successful, but some never lived to tell their story as they were immediately gunned down. Repercussions followed suit as the prisoners were confined to their living quarters, given limited rations of food, and taking roll call twice a day, one in the morning and before bed.
Rumors of the war coming to an end in Europe surfaced in May 1945, as the act of military surrender was signed May 7 and 8. More rumors within the camp suggested the United States had dropped two atomic bombs on Japan.
The first bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945, in the City of Hiroshima, killing an estimated 70,000 people. The second bomb was dropped on August 9, 1945, in the City of Nagasaki, killing an estimated 60,000 people.
The following morning regarding the tragic news that had taken place in history, the Japanese guards disappeared seemingly overnight. On August 15, 1945 Japan announced its surrender and just like that the prisoners were released.
The Golden Gates of Freedom
Sellheim in between the time of his migration to the United States worked as a gravedigger for the US Army in Shanghai. He and his brother George were granted visas in 1947 by a US Army advisory group who closely followed the brothers’ struggles and contributions. They had been promised refuge in better living conditions and job opportunities in the new world for the two years they served in the internment camp as well as for their hand in cleaning up the mess left behind by wartime.
The Sellheim brothers took a ferry across the Pacific with the rest of the refugees, landing in San Francisco, CA where they were taken back by the “bridges of freedom.” Mara de Silla, their stepmother, had been waiting for them at the port where she took them to reunite with their father Cyril. It had been eight years since the boys, now 20 and 21, seen their father.
Back to War
Sellheim was working as a bartender in the summer of 1950 in Yellowstone Park when he received drafting orders. He hurried back home to Pasadena, CA where his family had settled and now he was being shipped to fight in the Korean War.
Being that he was an immigrant during this time of war he was still registered to be drafted regardless of civilian status which was telling of what times were like during the Korean War. Sellheim worked in morse code but was eventually relieved of his duties once discovered he wasn’t American born. This time he was shipped back home as an American citizen, for his time served in the US military granted him citizenship.
Going Home
After his touring duties were coming to an end in November 1952, Sellheim went back home where he would meet his wife Patricia Toley at a local bar in Pasadena. He would settle down with her and their three daughters, Maureen, Nadine, and Katrina Sellheim.
Adapting to civilian life working for the Los Angeles DWP, Sellheim worked there until his retirement in 1998. At the age of 95, Sellheim has found peace and is proud to call the United States of America his home where he leads a comfortable life in Santa Clarita, CA surrounded by his wife, daughters, and grandchildren.
SoundCloud Link
