2022/2023
Collection 18

The Secret Basement

1945, Manila, Philippines; c. 1970, New York, New York, USA

How would you feel if you had to watch your people get tortured and killed? How would you feel if your life were in danger and you didn’t know what would come next? This is what my great-grandmother Dinah Collins had to experience in the Philippines in February of 1945.

It was the Battle of Manila during World War II. Japanese troops, which had occupied Manila for more than three years, fought against the Americans to prevent the use of the Philippines as a base of operations by the American forces. During this battle, the Japanese soldiers randomly sniped civilians, used them as human shields, and burst into their homes to torture and kill them.(1) Because of this, many Filipino(2) women and children would roam around to look for safety.

My great-grandma Dinah was thirty-four years of age at the time of this event. Her family owned a house with a secret basement, which was not typical of a Filipino home. The house had a hatch that led underground. Someone going to the basement would need to lift up a piece of wood and climb down a ladder. The basement was where my great-grandma stored her family’s antiques and heirlooms. But during this time, they used the basement to save people. Whenever there was an opportunity, my great-grandma would peek out her window to see if there were any women and children seeking shelter. Then she would take them to the safety of her family’s basement.

With the help of her mother, Zedra, and her brother, Loy, they provided food, since it was so hard to find food outside. While trying her best to keep these people safe and alive, my great-grandma felt very scared, but she had to stay strong to protect other people while also trying to protect herself. After a month of this living nightmare, the battle was finally over. Thankfully, everyone had been able to make it out of my great-grandma’s house alive.

Twenty-five years later, my great-grandma’s daughter, Sally, who was twenty-four years old, traveled to New York. While my grandma Sally was there, she met a Filipino woman named Linda, who was kind enough to help out struggling new immigrants to settle in. My grandma Sally offered to help Linda, and along the way, as they continued to get to know each other, Linda found out that my grandma Sally was my great-grandma Dinah’s daughter! Apparently Linda and her mother were two of the people who had taken shelter in the secret basement of my great-grandma’s home in 1945.

The harrowing experience greatly affected my great-grandma Dinah throughout the rest of her life. She didn’t want to leave the Philippines, because that was her “safe place.” Through some of the people she had helped during the war, the impact of her kindness had eventually reached New York, USA. My great-grandma couldn’t believe it!

Chloe Belen; Missouri, USA 

1. The Battle of Manila involved the worst urban fighting that U.S. troops experienced in the Asia–Pacific area during World War II. During this one month, more than 100,000 civilians were killed, and the city of Manila was completely devastated.

2. A Filipino (pronounced fil-i-PEE-noh) is a native or citizen of the Philippines.

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