Karen K. Lewis was born in 1932 in Glendale, California. During the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], her father worked as an accountant and got a job at the Benguet Gold Mine which led the family to relocate, first, to Manila [Annotator’s Note: Manila, the Philippines] in 1937 and then Baguio [Annotator’s Note: Baguio, the Philippines]. Lewis grew up in a house that represented American Imperialism. They had servants and lived well. Her parents were members of a country club where her father played golf. Her family enjoyed their life very much. Lewis became ill after she completed kindergarten. She was hospitalized for three months while the doctors tried to diagnose her. After she became well again, she attended the Brent School in Baguio before the invasion of the Japanese [Annotator's Note: The Philippines were invaded just hours after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941,]. On 8 December 1941, her mother woke her and said she was not going to school that day. Her mother knew that the Japanese would soon arrive in the Philippines. After the Japanese arrived and began bombing Manila and Baguio, Lewis and her family began preparations for wartime. [Annotator’s Note: Interviewee talks to someone off camera at 0:07:06.000.] She learned how to roll bandages and filled a cave with supplies. Around Christmastime, her family received a call from the mining company to evacuate the women and children to Manila because the Japanese had invaded a nearby bay. The mothers and the children were placed on buses to Manila while the workers blew up the mines. On the way down the mountain to the city, there was chaos. People were evacuating the city and traveling north, while others, like them, were traveling south. The Japanese were strafing the area and machine guns were blasting continuously. Lewis and her family stayed with friends in Manila and her father joined them on Christmas day, after he helped blow up the mines. Even though Manila was declared an open city [Annotator’s Note: a city that is not occupied or defended by military forces and that is not allowed to be bombed under international law], the Japanese were bombing it, so her family had to hide in an air raid shelter. The invasion was strange to Lewis because all of a sudden she saw Japanese in the city riding bikes or driving trucks. After New Years Day, the Japanese rounded up everyone and deposited them first at the Rizal Stadium and then Santo Tomas Internment Camp [Annotator’s Note: Santo Tomas Internment Camp, also known as the Manila Internment Camp, was the largest of several camps in the Philippines in which the Japanese interned enemy civilians, mostly Americans, in World War 2]. This became Lewis’ home for the next three years.

In 1942, Karen K. Lewis and her parents were interred at Santo Tomas Internment Camp [Annotator’s Note: Santo Tomas Internment Camp, also known as the Manila Internment Camp, was the largest of several camps in the Philippines in which the Japanese interned enemy civilians, mostly Americans, in World War 2] after the Japanese invaded [Annotator’s Note: 8 December 1941] and occupied the Philippines during World War 2. Her family was bussed into the camp and then directed to sit on a blanket while they waited to be assigned a room. The women and men were separated, and they were given cots and mosquito netting. Lewis was sure they would be liberated quickly and was curious about the whole situation. She quickly found her friends and they were all so happy because they did not have to go to school. Many of the parents were business-minded by trade, organizers, and aware of their civil rights. The adults created a sanitation system, conversed with the Japanese about their needs, and had a fly-killing contest. There was a sense of organization. There were doctors, nurses, and teachers and it began to feel like a community to her. Every adult was assigned a job. Many women were assigned to a cooking or clean-up detail. Her mother became a librarian in the camp. At the beginning of the war, and while the Japanese were winning, the camp was run by a Japanese civilian commandant who was educated in the United States. He was very nice. There were even entertainers that put on monthly variety shows and invited the commandant to come. After a year in the camp, things began to go downhill. The camp became more crowded, and they had to open up another annex for people to live in. Then the Japanese allowed some internees to build and live in shanties. Every morning and evening the internees had to be present for roll call and bow to the Japanese. The children were allowed to run around the camp and had lots of freedom. Her only rules were to not provoke the Japanese. As the war progressed and the Japanese began to lose, camp life became more militarized.

Karen K. Lewis and her parents were interned at Santo Tomas Internment Camp [Annotator’s Note: Santo Tomas Internment Camp, also known as the Manila Internment Camp, was the largest of several camps in the Philippines in which the Japanese interned enemy civilians, mostly Americans, in World War 2] and as the war progressed, the camp’s condition worsened. Food became scarce and the Japanese restricted goods going in and out of the camp. By 1943, the camp was so crowded that some internees were transferred to the Los Baños internment camp [Annotator’s Note: in Los Baños, the Philippines]. People in the camps were contracting all kinds of disease and lice was rampant. They did have nurses and doctors in the camp, but they could only do so much with the supplies they had on hand. Lewis went to sixth and seventh grade while she was in the camp. Her classroom was in the university’s lab room. Lewis was always hungry during her last year in camp. Her family did receive a Red Cross box one time while she was interned, but the Japanese took a lot of contents from it. At the beginning of war when Lewis first entered the camp, life was not bad. She was given adequate amounts of food and piano lessons from nuns in a convent. As the war progressed and began to come to an end, Lewis was starving. One day, bomber planes came over and dropped leaflets, then soon she heard the news that the Americans had landed in the Philippines [Annotator’s Note: amphibious landings on the eastern Philippine island of Leyte began 20 October 20 1944]. At the beginning of 1945, Lewis was sleeping in her bed when she heard a ruckus outside. She saw an American tank break through the camp. The women and children were so excited, and they ran downstairs to meet them. There was crossfire as the Americans tried to capture the Japanese guards. Lewis’ father was caught in the crossfire and had to look for cover. Eventually, the Japanese and Americans had to negotiate before the Japanese surrendered. [Annotator’s Note: interviewee gets surprised by someone she saw off camera at 0:42:58.000; video break at 0:43:04.000.]

After Karen K. Lewis and her parents were liberated from the Santo Tomas Internment Camp [Annotator’s Note: Santo Tomas Internment Camp, also known as the Manila Internment Camp, was the largest of several camps in the Philippines in which the Japanese interned enemy civilians, mostly Americans, in World War 2. It was liberated on 23 February 1945] by American troops, they were so thrilled to be free. A few days later, General MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] came to the camp and there was a ceremony and celebration. However, shortly after he left, a Japanese unit began shelling the compound. Lewis was in the main building on the first floor when the shelling began. She ran out and saw bodies lying on the ground. She was shocked and did not know what to think. After some time, the shelling stopped, and the Army began arranging to ship people home to the United States. Lewis and her family were picked to be on the first transport out of Santo Tomas. They left on back roads and headed to a plane. Lewis looked out of the window and saw Manila [Annotator’s Note: Manila, the Philippines] engulfed in flames. When they reached Leyte [Annotator’s Note: Leyte, the Philippines] she and her family boarded a boat and began their journey back to the United States. After one month, the ship sailed underneath the Golden Gate Bridge [Annotator's Note: a suspension bridge in San Francisco, California] and arrived in San Francisco in March 1945. Lewis reconnected with her extended family and moved to Los Angeles [Annotator’s Note: Los Angeles, California]. She began her eighth grade year in September 1945. She was introduced to a girl that had been interned at the Manzanar internment camp [Annotator’s Note: Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps where more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans were incarcerated from March 1942 to November 1945] and they became close acquaintances through their school years. To fit in in school, Lewis joined a Frank Sinatra [Annotator’s Note: Francis Albert Sinatra was an American singer and actor] fan club and began to adjust to normal life. [Annotator’s Note: video break at 0:56:29.000] Her father had a difficult time finding a job in accounting when he came back to the United States, so he changed his career entirely so that he would not have to compete with veterans. Her father was bitter towards the company that he worked for in the Philippines because it had abandoned their employees. Her mother found a job as a secretary, so Lewis was free to roam around the city and do whatever she wanted.

Karen K. Lewis never suffered from post-traumatic stress after her experiences in an internment camp. She was never afraid while she was in camp. While there, her mother left her rosary in a garden during a lull in shelling. After another shelling ended, she and her mother walked back to the garden to find it. Lewis explained that when you are in those kinds of situations, people just live their lives the best way they can to stay alive. Survival mode kicks in. Her experiences in the camp helped her learn how to adapt in life. She enjoyed being social and participating in groups when she could. She began sharing her experiences of the war in the last thirty years because people are interested in them. Her mother never got over losing everything during the war and was really affected by her experiences. Lewis’ most memorable experience of World War 2 was being liberated by the Americans because it was the most joyous time. World War 2 did not change her, but was a chapter in her life. Americans look at World War 2 as a time where people were proud of their country and their military. There should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and we should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations. She wishes that the Museum would include the story of civilians.