SHENYANG, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- At 79, Alan Joy still remembers when he was a child, his father Ronald would sit in a local pub in the English city of Bradford night after night, nursing pints of beer before heading to bed.

This ritual was not about indulgence but survival, the younger Joy had learned from his mother years later. For his father, who had been a prisoner of war (POW) held by the Japanese in northeast China, sleep free of nightmares was never won without the numbing haze of alcohol.

"Without this mild level of intoxication, he might have dreams related to his time in the camp," Alan Joy told Xinhua.

The "camp" in question was the former Mukden POW camp, which was established by the Japanese army during World War II in Shenyang, then known as Mukden, in northeast China's Liaoning Province.

Known as "oriental Auschwitz," the Mukden camp was one of the largest POW sites in Asia and notorious for its brutality. From November 1942 to August 1945, more than 2,000 Allied prisoners from the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and France were held there.

Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States, Britain and other Allied nations declared war on Japan in 1941. Battles across Hong Kong, Malaysia, Myanmar and the Philippines led to the capture of hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers, many of whom ended up in concentration camps across Japan and the territories it occupied, where they were forced into exhausting labor.

According to British Major Robert Peaty, who was a senior-ranking Allied officer held at the Mukden camp, the Japanese army had treated the Allied POWs in a "disgraceful manner." Hunger, beatings and humiliation were all part of daily life there.

The younger Joy said that his father didn't speak much about his hell-like experience at the camp. "I only ever had one in-depth conversation with him about the camp."

"He mentioned once being caught smoking in a forbidden area by a Korean guard. As punishment, he had to do 100 push-ups. Each time he pushed up, the guard hit the back of his neck with his rifle butt," he said.

Public executions were not uncommon at the camp. Ronald Joy had told his son about two POWs who attempted to escape. They were caught quickly, dragged back to the camp and bayoneted to death in front of the other prisoners.

Ian Peaty, the son of Major Peaty, had told Xinhua that nearly all the prisoners had suffered from malnutrition and illness -- conditions that haunted them long after their liberation. When Major Peaty finally returned to Britain by ship, he was so gaunt and frail that even his own family failed to recognize him.

Yet amid the brutality, local Chinese residents, who were themselves living under Japanese occupation, quietly risked everything to aid the captives.

Li Lishui, who had labored at a Japanese-run machinery works as a child, recalled in an interview with Xinhua before his passing that many prisoners had been forced into grueling labor there and he had managed to help them.

"They were so thin, always hungry. Sometimes, if they saw a peanut on the ground, they'd pick it up and slip it into their pocket," he said.

Because he was then just a teenager, the Japanese guards watched him less closely. One day, he swiped a few cucumbers from a passing cart. As he turned, he noticed a prisoner marked with the number 266 staring at him with longing eyes.

"I remembered him. He was kind, always cleaning up after work and keeping the place tidy," Li said. Without hesitation, he had crouched down and tossed the man two cucumbers. Prisoner 266 quickly scooped them up and hid them away.

Li said that he had never forgotten the moment he saw prisoner 266 again after Japan's surrender. "He ran up to greet me, smiling, and handed me a handful of candy, actually chocolate as I got to know later. It was a little bitter, but it tasted wonderful."

Others had done even more to resist their captivity. Ge Qingyu, who managed supplies at a Japanese factory during the occupation, had smuggled bearings for Allied POWs so they could barter for food. And Gao Dechun had secretly provided maps to three POWs who were planning an escape.

"POWs received strong support and protection from the Chinese people," said historian Wang Jianxue. "Locals forged deep friendships with them, reflecting the kindness and humanity of ordinary Chinese people."

In 2005, the Department of State of the United States awarded these three Chinese citizens for the humanitarian help they offered to US POWs during the war.

Today, the site of the camp has been transformed into a museum. Opened in 2013, it preserves the relics of that dark chapter of history: the barracks, the objects and the stories etched into the walls. For the descendants of these POWs, like Alan Joy, the museum's existence is vital.

"A knowledge of the past is necessary for an understanding of the present," he said. "The museum serves as a reminder of how people can behave when misinformed and misled."

Ian Peaty also had been carrying the weight of his father's suffering during the war. Like his father, he had long refused to visit Japan. When the Japanese emperor paid a state visit to Britain years ago, his brother even wrote to the prime minister in protest.

Li Zhuoran, deputy director of the museum, said that it has maintained contact with several descendants of former prisoners over the years, including Alan Joy. She expressed hope that research into the period could be revived to uncover further historical truths and keep its memory alive.

"Looking back, the suffering, resistance and sacrifice endured by Allied POWs stand not only as irrefutable evidence of the war crimes committed by the Japanese army, but also as a testament to how Chinese troops and civilians stood shoulder to shoulder with their allies in the global fight against fascism," said Jing Shaofu, former director of the Shenyang archives. ■