SYBIL KATHIGASU (1899-1948)
BACKGROUND
Born Sybil Medan Daly to an Irish-Eurasian planter, Joseph Daly and a French-Eurasian midwife, Beatrice Matilda Daly née Martin, on 3 September 1899 in Medan, Sumatera, Indonesia (which explains her middle name). The fifth child and the only girl, she was trained as a nurse and midwife and spoke Cantonese fluently.
She married Dr. Arumugam Kanapathi Pillay, a Ceylonese (Sri Lankan) Tamil from Taiping who was born on 17 June 1982 to Kanapathi Pillay and Thangam. Initially there had been religious objection from her parents as he was a Hindu and she was a Catholic. He married Sybil with his father's agreement on 7 January 1919 in St. John's Church, Bukit Nanas, Kuala Lumpur after he agreed to convert to please Sybil's family and took a new name Abdon Clement Kathigasu. He operated a clinic at No 141 Brewster Road (now Jalan Sultan Idris Shah) in Ipoh from 1926 until the Japanese invasion of Malaya.
Sybil's eldest child, Michael, named after her elder brother who was born in Taiping on 12 November 1982, was born on 26 August 1919; 15 days after Sybil's elder brother was killed in Gallipoli 23 years later as a member of the British army. However, due to major complications at birth, Michael died after only 19 hours which led to the devastated Sybil to adopt a young boy, William Pillay born on 25 October 1918. Then a daughter, Olga, was born to Sybil in Pekeliling, Kuala Lumpur on 26 February 1921 and she was a very special baby to Sybil because she had no birth problems. A second daughter and the last child, Dawn, was born on 21 September 1936 after Sybil returned to Ipoh on 7 April 1921.
The family fled to the nearby town of Papan days before Japanese forces occupied and bombed Ipoh. The local Chinese community fondly remembered Dr. AC Kathigasu and nicknamed him in Hakka, "You Loy-De". Residing at No. 74, Main Street in Papan, Kathigasu secretly kept shortwave radio sets and listened to BBC broadcasts. The family quietly supplied medicines, medical services and information to the locals and fighters of the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) until they were arrested in 1943.
Despite being interrogated and tortured by the Japanese military police, Sybil persisted in her efforts and was imprisoned in Batu Gajah jail. Her fingers were ripped off with pliers and her legs were scalded with iron rods. She was also forced to drink large quantities of water before the Japanese military police stepped on her bloated stomach ("Tokyo Wine Treatment"), and she suffered damage to the spine and skull due to beatings with a bamboo stick. Her then five-year-old daughter, Dawn, was dangled from a tree and her torturers threatened to roast her child alive with burning charcoal beneath her. After the liberation of Malaya in August 1945, Kathigasu was flown to Britain for medical treatment where she started jotting down her memoirs.
Sybil received the George Medal for Gallantry, a high civilian honour by King George IV several months before her death in June 1948; an old wound at the jaw sustained from the kick of a Japanese boot that brought on a fatal bout of septicaemia.
She passed away on 4 June 1948 at the age of 48 in Britain and her body was buried in Lanark, Scotland. Her body was later returned in 1949 to Ipoh and reburied at the Roman Catholic cemetery beside St. Michael's Church opposite the Main Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (now SMK Convent) on Brewster Road in Ipoh.
A road in Fair Park, Ipoh was named after Sybil Kathigasu (Jalan Sybil Kathigasu) after independence to commemorate her bravery. Today, the shop house at 74, Main Road, Papan, serves as a memorial to Sybil and her efforts.
NO DRAM OF MERCY (2006)
A memoir of Sybil's memoirs, the author gave an account of a woman (Sybil Kathigasu) of great courage, who should be regarded as a beacon and role model to all Malaysians. Sybil's life is perhaps the best example of unity: a Penangite of Eurasian descent who sacrificed her life for the MPAJA.
It is one woman's struggle and sacrifice driven by deep personal conviction for justice, in the face of inhumanity at a time when Malaya was upside down. The contribution of woman to the course of history, including Sybil's, had always been under-documented, under-recognized and often untold.
Luckily for us, she lived to tell her story and penned down her gripping experiences. In short, it is a rare historiography of a true national heroine. She, like many others in the war effort, gave the ultimate sacrifice to the nation in order that we may live peacefully.
Get your copy here!
Another blogger's opinion.
Read more here.
Research on this book.
NO DRAM OF MERCY (2006)
A memoir of Sybil's memoirs, the author gave an account of a woman (Sybil Kathigasu) of great courage, who should be regarded as a beacon and role model to all Malaysians. Sybil's life is perhaps the best example of unity: a Penangite of Eurasian descent who sacrificed her life for the MPAJA.It is one woman's struggle and sacrifice driven by deep personal conviction for justice, in the face of inhumanity at a time when Malaya was upside down. The contribution of woman to the course of history, including Sybil's, had always been under-documented, under-recognized and often untold.
Luckily for us, she lived to tell her story and penned down her gripping experiences. In short, it is a rare historiography of a true national heroine. She, like many others in the war effort, gave the ultimate sacrifice to the nation in order that we may live peacefully.
Get your copy here!
Another blogger's opinion.
Read more here.
Research on this book.
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