Please Remember Me: A Migration Memoir (RD)
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, “Please remember me.”
Origins
All aboard the Empress of Japan, it was late in the Summer of 1938 in the hot and humid Philippines where Michael H. Sellheim packed his winter clothes as he realized he would no longer be in the tropics.
Sellheim and his older brother George’s journey across the globe began in Singapore before moving to the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Shanghai.
Sellheim was born October 8,1927 in Singapore to a British father, Cyril Von Sellheim, and a Lithuanian mother, Helen Gedroits, who had occupied the British territory of Singapore for work related purposes.
In 1934, the untimely death of his mother Helen, due to an automobile accident, would change the course of Michael and George’s lives forever.
Cyril would remarry a year later to a woman named Mara de Silla.
One day, Cyril informed the boys that they would need to learn English, for they had always communicated in Russian. They were told they would be moving to the Philippines, “where everyone spoke English,” Cyril said.
Cyril’s work obligations grew as his job required extensive traveling. Accompanied with 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 coupled 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 amidst the news.
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 has been struck by the Japanese and Shanghai was next.
The Sellheim brother’s 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 by 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 barbwire 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 seventh and eighth. 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 grave digger for the US Army in Shanghai before he and his brother George were granted Visa’s in 1947. They had been promised refuge in better living conditions and job opportunities for all the time they served in the camps as well as for their hand in cleaning up the mess left behind by wartime.
The Sellheim brothers took a ferry across the Pacific, 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 due to the casualties that wartime brings.
Back to War
Sellheim was working as a bartender in 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.
Going Home
After his touring duties were coming to an end in November 1952, Sellheim went back home where he would meet his lovely wife Patricia Toley at a local bar in Pasadena. He would settle down with her and birth three daughters, Maureen, Nadine, and Katrina Sellheim.
Adapting to civilian life working for the Los Angeles DWP, Sellheim found peace and was at last proud to call the United States of America his final resting home.
