Among the Bandits for 196 Days (Dr. Niels Nielsen, 1933)

Our readers will remember the post entitled, Dr. and Mrs. Niels Nielsen, Medical Missionaries. We mentioned there that Dr. Nielsen had been abducted and held for ransom. Now, we present the story of his ordeal, which occurred in 1933 and fits in sequence here.

This is a translation of the greater part of a long article written by Dr. Nielsen following his release. We think our readers will agree that it is a remarkable story in many respects:

"During this time of transition, it is difficult to distinguish between insurgents, dismissed soldiers, and professional bandits since they all live by banditry.

"Since it was commonly said that many of the people here in this district were beholden to me for long hospital stays as well as health and life, I had absolute confidence that no one would rob the hospital or do me any harm. Such was also the opinion of the general public and the police shared this view.

"The hospital doors had stood open to the people day and night, and we relied on nothing other than the protection of God and the affection of the people. On the night of April 11, however, I was called down to the men's hospital in order to attend to a wounded patient, someone who was expected any moment. When I came in and began my preparations, I was surrounded by soldiers who were in the room and I imagined to be waiting for their wounded comrade's arrival. They held three pistols to my chest and put a rifle to my back, while another hurriedly tied my arms from behind and put a noose around my neck. Then in the cold spring night, only half dressed, with a bandit on each arm, a rifle tucked hard into my back, and surrounded by a troop of bandits, I was abducted from home and work and taken out to the idle life of a fugitive in the remote mountainous regions. Two of the hospital assistants were also taken, one of whom was later allowed to go home again, while the other was forced to remain to act as a messenger and so forth.

"To be so violently torn away from all that you have been connected to in daily life since your early days seems to be a living burial, because of the immediate cessation of all work and habitual activity. Moreover, you are now surrounded by rudeness of spirit, immorality and cruelty, and the life of the vagrant Cain. . . . In this helpless condition, there is absolutely no fear of death, since the idea of being transported to one's heavenly home is liberating and comforting. . .

"A hymnal and a New Testament were the only books I had with me. One must cast off all burdens to live by night, climbing mountains and wading through rivers and mountain streams, the more so as the bandits rarely use the known and more accessible trails, mountain passes, and fords to ensure that no enemy overtakes them and no spy follows. In addition, clothes are often soaked in rain, so only with great care may books and soap be kept dry. . . .

"It was a great encouragement to have the opportunity to bring many people the message of salvation as well as medical care. An old medicine dealer lay huddled on his kang. He had lain for several hours with a strangulated hernia. I offered to cut an opening in the intestines with my pocket knife so he could be returned to his previous condition and then after he was out of danger he could be borne to the hospital for further treatment. Fortunately, we managed to get back the intestine without using the knife.

"A bandit was shot through the right lung, and the bullet had been sitting in the left shoulder area for two days. An urgent operation was necessary to keep his lungs clear, but instruments and medications for anesthesia were missing. When the man heard that we in the west had operated well before we knew how to use anesthesia, he chose that. I then cut with a Chinese razor and took the bullet out with the shaft of my teaspoon. The man recovered in two weeks.

"Another man had his left upper arm shattered near the elbow joint by a rifle bullet. For three weeks, he had been using a plaster of a sort of shoemaker's pitch and the whole arm was attacked by inflammation and filled with pus. Instruments and medicine had been fetched from the hospital, and I managed with local anesthetic to position the arm and take out seven pieces of bone. The arm is now almost healed with motion in the elbow and new bone growth in the upper arm.

"I did a multitude of smaller operations, and in many homes I gave out medicine to at least a dozen people for many different disorders. The robbers took no small pride in thus bringing medical assistance to the homes. They demanded eggs and other good things for me, as my wife had sent them three hundred dollars for provisions. Then the bandits took their cut and ate most of the eggs.

"At this time there are several thousand bandits here in these environs that feed both themselves and their families by banditry because of the major political upheavals. At the time of the change of government, the last mandarin, along with a significant component of the army, was driven out into the mountains and must engage in banditry to cover their current expenses. Besides, there are many other outlaws, etc., which likewise use banditry as a livelihood. Therefore, all the bandits cannot be considered from the same presupposition. The difficulty of separation arises in that the political outlaws use people and procedures that draw them down into plain banditry and common outlawry, so the difference is that a proportion of income is used for political agitation, as well as to cover the costs of the agitators, their sojourns for a change of climate, and their political journeys outside the country.

"The bandit gang that abducted me is of the political type. The leaders are members of the school- and student unions. They are aged 16 to 25 years. Originally there were only a dozen members, but they have since increased their number by fifty hired people who receive a monthly salary, and besides that they keep many spies. In numerous ways they are deceived and seduced by the mendacious political and social agitation and the currents of the time. Particularly affecting are those in the direction of malicious criticism and hatred. They busy themselves with fomenting international, industrial and political complications and entanglements. With rejection, they brood on the past political mistakes, which incidentally no historian tries to conceal, excuse, or minimize the responsibility of the guilty parties. They do not understand how to assimilate the warning and instruction of history. They neither understand nor have an overview of the present world situation. Their use of and interaction with a large number of low criminals will in a short time bring them down to their level.

"Although they are embittered and advocate many non-Christian views, they did not blame me for anything, nor did they comment negatively on missionary labor or its motives. In their youthful inexperience and lack of diplomatic insight, they conceived a plan to abduct me as a hostage and make the government pay half a million dollars in ransom as well as supply them with a portion of firearms and ammunition. All this they meant to achieve in a week's time. This was a complete overvaluation of the role and value of a missionary in society. And they thought the government's refusal would lead to war between Japan and America, which they regarded as a timely help for China. I tried to advise them, but they did not follow my advice.

"After some time, a law came out prohibiting the payment of ransom to bandits. It requires the person who pays a ransom without permission to be punished. Since the law is not supported and implemented with adequate police power against the bandits, the defenseless unarmed citizens must endure and suffer both the bandit attacks and the police punishment because the ransom must nevertheless be delivered, or else the prisoner, after cruel tortures, must pay with his life.

"On the whole, the band did not stop banditry after receiving instruction in Christianity. Several were not immune, however, and I managed to persuade some to return home. Others have promised to abandon the profession as soon as they get their summer wages. Both of the leaders also made detailed inquiries about the possibility of obtaining the 'clean hands' that they had heard me say all sorts of soap was not able to give them.

"Banditry is often not caused by greed and sloth. The ingenious institutions fostered by Christian love for the relief and protection of many unfortunate people are obviously unknown in this heathen land. The concept of mercy is expressed, but generally falls short of achievement. Relief of the poor, old age and health benefits, hospitals, mental asylums, retirement homes, Fredehjem,* orphanages and other rescue institutions are as little known as a public school that gives children a hot meal and free dental care and nursing services. Mutual help associations with assurance against fire, pestilence and livestock disease are all unknown, so the losses are often more than the individual can bear. Then when they lack bread, how shall they sustain life in their small, leaky houses without ceilings, with only thin roofs, and holey ground floors, which in summer are so humid that small water-pipes are needed to drain out the trickling flow of water while in the winter the floors freeze to cold sheets of ice which absorb the heat that the little, hungry, almost naked and frequently sick children so desperately need? In their leaky windows, there are only thin layers of newsprint as a defense against the importunate winter storms. The unemployed and helpless breadwinner who lays hands on another's property will remain for the rest of his days a poor, bitter, and outlawed bandit, since according to Eastern custom and law each family member's mistakes and offenses are imputed to the entire family. Thus their home must be moved to remote and unknown regions. Other robbers are partly or wholly insane, but since they are quite without resources for mercy, they seek, like the lepers, food and shelter in distant places and exercise self-help.

"Many bandits here in this district are working men that during the spring came from Shantung to seek work spinning silk, etc., to return home late in the autumn with their summer pay. Silk spinning is presently at a standstill, however, so those workers are without trade or travel money. They can be hired by the bandits for monthly wages and a large portion of them participate only as watchmen. This is far from everything said about bandits or banditry. I say this only to emphasize some of the causative circumstances that help keep many bandits in their unhappy lives.

"Originally it was absolutely not the bandits' intention to extort money from the hospital or me, but since the country is very impoverished, their summer yield was low, and they stood on the threshold of winter without winter clothes and food for themselves and their family, and at the same time owed the hired people several months' salary, they were inclined to follow my recommendation to write down their requirements.

"They sent me back under full protection against capture by other bands and at great peril to their own lives, as there are many government troops in the district whose objective is the eradication of bandits. Rather than surrender me to the nearest division of the army, they wanted to show the army that they were able to deliver me to the place from which they had taken me 196 days earlier.

"On October 25, 1933, at 2:00 a.m., I was set free and received with much love in my beloved home milieu.

"The robbers all along treated me as well as circumstances and their desperate living conditions permitted. Deliberately and intentionally, they did not mistreat me, and they sheltered me from witnessing the beating and torture of other prisoners.

"One day some dear children decorated me with flowers, and after that the young robbers every day took an opportunity to fill my buttonhole with the most beautiful flowers they could find.

"However deeply I may regret that a 'ransom' had to be paid, it is a comfort that a large portion of it will be used for food, clothing, and shelter for many people who, with or without any fault of their own, are in such great distress that many contributions for famine relief could not find a better use.

"The bandits claimed that after this mountain tour I will be able to work at least five years longer than otherwise. Only God knows, but He is able to bestow His blessings tenfold.

"'To a prayer in loving faith, the Lord does not say no', has again provided a good outcome to this incident.

"Hearty thanks to all the dear friends for their faithful intercession throughout this long time.

"Affectionate greetings from your grateful envoys.

"Kirstine and N. Nielsen"

Dr. and Mrs. Nielsen were American citizens. Early in the doctor's captivity, the American vice-counsel unsuccessfully tried to negotiate his release. The Japanese from the beginning opposed the payment of a ransom. Moreover, according to an article in the New York Times published immediately after Dr. Nielsen's return, rescue efforts by the Japanese troops had only resulted in the bandits taking the physician farther into the mountains.

Although there is a public relations photograph taken later on during the morning of Dr. Nielsen's return which depicts him (now clean-shaven) standing with Japanese soldiers and the current mandarin, his actual return was in fact a clandestine operation. A time was selected when most of the soldiers were out of town and the hospital guards had been secretly cautioned by the missionaries not to shoot if someone approached. Then Dr. Nielsen was brought back to the hospital at 2:00 a.m. under cover of darkness so that his captors were less likely to be killed or apprehended by the Japanese. The young Chinese man abducted at the same time had been with Dr. Nielsen throughout the ordeal but had been released some days earlier. He then assisted in the transactions that actually resulted in Dr. Nielsen's return.

From Dr. Nielsen's article, it appears that the actual amount of ransom agreed upon and paid was based on a computation of what the bandits actually needed to pay off their hired help and cover their own winter expenses. According to our sources, the amount was US $1,200.

When Dr. Nielsen describes the fantasy the bandits had about the "government's refusal" leading to war between Japan and the United States, apparently what he was saying was that these naive young bandits believed that Manchukuo's refusal to permit a ransom to be paid would result in the United States declaring war on Japan.

It's difficult to reconcile the fact that these young political bandits on the one hand were pleased to bring Dr. Nielsen's medical aid to some households while they robbed and kidnapped from others and even beat and tortured their prisoners. Presumably, they made a distinction based on the household's economic circumstances or perhaps based on their own need for support from some segment of the populace. Unfortunately, Dr. Nielsen does not clarify this aspect of the situation.

Dr. Nielsen (who was 58 years of age at the time) does not mention being ill. In a follow-up article, however, Rev. Bjergaarde wrote that on the morning of his return Dr. Nielsen looked so old and tired that the missionaries found him difficult to recognize. Also, he had lost 47 pounds during his captivity. Moreover, the New York Times reported that while still being held the doctor had said in notes to his wife that he was in poor health.

The Nielsens left for America not long after the doctor's release. They were on furlough for nearly three years, until October 1936. After that they returned to Siuyen and continued to serve there until the onset of World War II when the Japanese ejected them because they were American citizens.

Translated source:
Nielsen, Kirstine and Niels; "Blandt Røvere i 196 Dage;" Dansk Missionsblad, Vol. 100, Nr. 47, November 22, 1933; pp. 685-690. Translation by Marie-Jacqueline.

Other published sources:
Bjergaarde, Jens P.; "Dr. Nielsens Frigivelse", Dansk Missionsblad, Vol. 100, Nr. 52, December 27, 1933; pp. 762-766.
"Manchurians Free American Doctor," New York Times, October 26, 1933, p.11.

Image:
Photograph of Dr. Nielsen early during the morning of his release before he shaved off the beard he had grown over the past seven months. From Dansk Missionsblad, Vol. 100, Nr. 52, December 27, 1933; p. 765.
All D.M.S. items used with permission.
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*The literal translation of fredehjem is "protect-home". This seems to be some kind of protective services, but we would appreciate information from our Danish readers as to the exact nature of this institution.