In 1939, at the most dangerous time for the Chinese nation, an international medical team for China, consisting of white-clothed soldiers from Poland, Germany, Austria, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, and the USSR, traveled thousands of miles to China, coming to Tuyunguan in Guiyang City. They were organized into the Chinese Red Cross Ambulance Corps, spent more than 2,000 days and nights in China, and the Chinese people with the sweet *** suffering, life and death and ****, has been insisting on the victory of the war of resistance, and some of them also gave their precious lives. This is an unforgettable historical memory, and many moving stories should be celebrated forever. In commemorating the victory of the Chinese people's war of resistance against Japan and the world anti-fascist war, we come to remember the great achievements of these internationalist fighters, has a more special significance.
Early in 1939, the International Medical Aid Society (IMAS) recruited a group of medical personnel from the Gurs concentration camp who volunteered to serve in China and traveled to China via Hong Kong. In September 1939, Song Qingling, president of the "League for the Defense of China," met the members of the international medical team in Hong Kong, and in October they arrived in Guiyang Tuyunguan, where the Red Cross Ambulance Brigade of China was stationed.
To mingle and integrate with the Chinese people, the foreign medical workers each took a Chinese name. The first obstacle they encountered was the language barrier. At first, they could only communicate with hand gestures and encountered great difficulties in their work and life. With great perseverance, they learned Chinese and gradually broke the language barrier, they could talk to patients, go shopping, and even sing Chinese songs and listen to Peking opera, and Gan Yandao from Bulgaria married a Chinese girl.
The "life barrier" is also very difficult. People who are used to eating milk, bread and Western food do not find it easy to switch to rice and Chinese food. The most difficult thing for them is to hold the chopsticks, after learning for a long time, they still can't follow the instructions, and the rice that was easily picked up fell down again. As time went by, they went from not being used to Chinese food to liking it. Decades later, a reporter interviewed Gan Yangdao, and he still talked about how delicious Chinese dumplings were, especially mentioning the "stinky tofu" in Guiyang. The accommodations were harsh, with thatched roofs, wooden beds, no toilets, no bathrooms, and rats scurrying around, sometimes even biting people's ears.
The working environment is extremely poor. The hospital is a row of simple thatched huts, dozens of patients one by one crowded in a long plank bed. The medical equipment is scarce, they use bamboo to prepare the operating table, medicine racks, made of wood splints for the wounded treatment of broken bones. When medicine was scarce, they learned Chinese medicine and used Chinese herbs to cure the disease.
Despite the many difficulties they encountered, their spirit of perseverance and strong beliefs supported them to endure all kinds of pain and devote themselves to their work. 6 years, tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers returned to the battlefield after their careful treatment. During this period, the Romanian Ke Zhilan and the German Dr. Wang Dao, due to exhaustion and illness, unfortunately died in the line of duty.
At that time, the International Medical Assistance Team for China and the Chinese ****productivity party had many interactions and established a deep friendship. These foreign doctors are basically members of the ****production party, in fact, their initial intention to come to China is to want to go to the liberated areas, like their comrades in Spain, the Canadian doctor Bai Qiu'en, and the liberated areas of the army and people together with the Japanese invaders to fight. The head of the medical team, Polish doctor Fu Latto, once went to the office of the Eighth Route Army in Chongqing to ask Zhou Enlai to be sent to the liberated areas under the leadership of the Chinese ****productivity party to fight against the Japanese together with the Eighth Route Army. But as the roads leading to Yan'an and the liberated areas had been blocked by the Kuomintang at that time, Zhou Enlai explained to Fu Latto that as long as they were in China, together with the Chinese army and people, they would be helping the Chinese people to fight against the Japanese wherever they were. In this way they stayed in the Nationalist areas and served as doctors in the Red Cross Ambulance General Corps. The medical team often transported collected medicines and medical equipment to Chongqing and handed them over to the Eighth Route Army office as their "special form of party expenses". Many of them were familiar with Zhou Enlai, Wang Bingnan, Chen Jiakang and Zhang Wenjin, who were working in the Eighth Route Army Office at that time. Fu Rato had seen Dong Biwu and Deng Yingchao.
After the victory in the war, members of the International Medical Assistance Team for China left China. Many of them still cared about China's development after returning to China and continued to contribute to the friendly relations between their motherland and China. The Chinese people have not forgotten these old friends, and when Premier Zhou Enlai visited Poland in July 1954, he expressed his wish to meet with Mr. Fu Lator. At that time, Mr. Fu Lator was imprisoned for political reasons. Premier Zhou's words set him free, and he was given a home not far from the Polish presidential palace where he could receive dignitaries. Shortly afterward, Fu Lator was appointed Minister-Counselor of the Polish Embassy in China, making a new contribution to Sino-Polish friendship. Today, all of these members of the International Medical Assistance Team for China have passed away.
In 1985, in order to forever remember the immortal contribution of these internationalist soldiers to China's victory in the war of resistance, Guiyang City erected a white jade monument at the former site of the former ambulance brigade in Tuyunguan. On the front is an inscription in English and Chinese: "In order to support China's war of resistance, the London Medical Aid Society formed a medical team, which came to Guiyang in 1939 to contribute to the Chinese people's fight against the Japanese invaders. This monument is hereby engraved to remember." Above the inscription is a spherical relief, symbolizing internationalism, and on the relief is a red marble cross - the emblem of the International Red Cross. On the back of the monument is a list of medical workers of the International Medical Corps in English and Chinese.