Phyllis HARROP [????-????]

Phyllis Harrop came to Hong Kong from Shanghai in 1937. In January 1938 she ws appointed an Assistant Secretary to the Secretary for Chinese Affairs; her task was to protect Chinese women in the wake of the Government's attempts to end the system of 'mui tsai' (sometimes called domestic slavery).

During the war she was attached to the Nationalist Chinese police and after the surrender lived in the Prince's Building with other Government employees who were not immediately interned in Stanley, while establishing German nationality on the basis of a marriage that had ended in divorce. Using this, she made an escape, beginning on January 28, 1942, which took her to Chungking by way of Macao. She carried some of the first news of wartime atrocities to the outside world and in 1943 published a book about her experiences.

Sources:

Phyllis Harrop, Hong Kong Incident, 1943, 40-42; 133-140