The Mad Manchurian, by Tom Meschery
The Mad Manchurian, by Tom Meschery
I was born in Harbin, Manchuria, (later China), in 1938. At the outbreak of the Second World War my mother, sister, and I, along with other non-combatants of the Allied countries, were taken by the Japanese to an internment camp in Tokyo where we would remain for four years—to the end of the war. My mother’s recollection is that I was a sickly child. By the time I arrived in Japan, according to her, I had survived diphtheria, whooping cough, yellow fever, smallpox, and tuberculosis. Such afflictions, to my mother’s astonishment, did not keep me from growing to my adult height of 6’6” and muscular weight of 220 pounds. Nor did they keep me from being strong enough and skillful enough to become a professional basketball player and play 10 years for the National Basketball Association, as the first ethnic Russian and immigrant to do so, and the first to be named to an All-Star team.