Seoul City Sue - Sino-Japanese War

Sino-Japanese War

Americans in Shanghai began to depart that same year, slowly as tensions rose in the environs of the city, then en masse shortly before the US and Japan officially went to war. SAS remained open until February 1943, when the remaining foreign staff were forced into the Chapei Civilian Relocation Center, a short distance away in the northern suburbs. This internment camp, one of several in and around Shanghai, occupied a three story dormitory on the grounds of Great China University (now East China Normal University), most of which was damaged or destroyed during the 1937 Battle of Shanghai.

Whether as a part of the remaining school staff or on her own, Anna also entered the Chapei center at this time, while her husband may have remained free as a colonial subject of Japan. During the internment, the SAS staff and parents took advantage of the school's books that had followed them to organize classes for the children. Supplies with which to maintain the internees grew short towards the end of the war, and a number of women married to citizens of Axis powers or neutral countries were released in late 1944. It is possible that Anna was among these.

With Anna's formal release from detention at the end of World War II, she joined the staff of the reconstituted SAS for the 1945-46 school year.