Forbidden Diary: True WWII Prison Survival Story

Mr. Tomibe tries to help prisoners get food from the outside and allows married couples to live together. Natalie is dumbstruck that half of the Camp is against Mr. Tomibe's Family Unit Plan. Letters…

Prisoner escapes and worries about MacArthur returning to the Philippines and has High Command clamping down on internment camps, sending new rules that Mr. Tomibe must enforce. Prisoners learn more …

June becomes deathly ill. More Red Cross packages are distributed, including medical packages with a new medical supply called plasma which Camp doctors try on June. A new invention saves the day, an…

Archivist and historian Jim Zobel tells riveting stories about what was going on outside of Camp Holmes during the last half of 1943. Jim talks about MacArthur’s covert operations to rescue civilian…

The Camp hospital runs out of beds for dysentery patients. Bedie is discharged too early from the hospital causing Natalie and Jerry to question his health care. Food shortages reduce good pickings f…

America is gaining ground in the Pacific. The prisoners have more money for food, but it’s becoming scarcer and more expensive. Everyone’s health is declining. Natalie’s vitamin injection goes wrong.…

In the second of three parts, 96-year-old Curt Brooks talks about life at Santo Tomas, a civilian internment camp in Manila which housed 3700 prisoners. In this segment, Curt describes his boyhood me…

The prisoners are finally allowed to send letters. As Natalie types for them, people pour their hearts out to loved ones at home. The increased clampdown on guerrilla activity affects Nida and Ismael…

With Japanese occupation money losing value and food shortages, internees take out promissory loans for American dollars after the war. It’s “spend it while you got it” around Camp, and those with mo…

Historian and archivist, Jim Zobel talks from the MacArthur Memorial Library about the events in the first half of 1943 as General MacArthur inches closer to Japan. Find out what happened to the two …

Natalie takes a closer look at everyone’s behavior in camp. New internees share unforgettable stories of heroism and evil. Peg hears word about her husband. The Crouters learn disturbing news about N…

The Japanese order Arthur to hunt down an American hiding in the mountains. Newly captured Americans tell harrowing stories about their life on the run. Nida worries about Ismael. Lt. Mukibo and Mr. …

Another year of close quarters has prisoners getting on each other’s nerves as they deal with new waves of dysentery. Stories are filtering in from captured internees who had been hiding in the mount…

Includes all seven episodes in Season Three without the openings and recaps.

NEW! You can view paintings and sketches drawn by people who were interned with Natalie by clicking See Pictures under the…

In this last interview, Jim Zobel shares fascinating insights about MacArthur’s first steps to liberate the Philippines—from the campaign in Papua New Guinea to making early radio contact with guerri…

The holidays are celebrated in bittersweet, internment style. True friends come through. A little boy teaches the camp a lesson. Dysentery returns, and Dr. Hall is not sure how the internees will sur…

 Bullets fly around Baguio and Camp Holmes as Filipino and Igorot guerrillas attack the Japanese. Natalie worries about Jerry’s depression. Additional co-mingling restrictions increase sexual tension…

 As typhoon season begins Jerry is brought in for questioning. Nida and Ismael talk about guerrilla insurgencies. Natalie gets a tour of the camp's shop, a special gift, and called to the guard house…

Jim Zobel describes how General Douglas MacArthur escaped to Australia and Japan took Corregidor. In a lively discussion the archivist explains how shortly after all of these defeats Americans and Fi…

Nida and Ismael offer the Crouters more help. The prisoners get to know the soldiers who cycle through the camp. A secret radio is installed in the camp hospital. June addresses inequities among pris…