Sybil Medan Kathigasu aka Daly (3 Sept 1899 - 12 June 1948) , according to older daughter Olga, was of French and Penang Eurasian descent. She married AC Kathigasu, a doctor, while she was a trained nurse and together they operated a clinic in Ipoh from 1926 until Japanese troops arrived in Malaya on 26 December, 1942.
The couple, along with their two daughters Olga and Dawn and an adopted son William, moved to a small town called Papan.
Together with her husband, the resistance fighter opened another dispensary in Papan and secretly provided the guerrilla forces with medical treatment and supplies as well as information to the resistance forces during the Japanese Occupation of Malaya.
They were betrayed and she was caught by the Japanese in 1943 and tortured mercilessly. She underwent the “Tokyo wine treatment” whereby water was pumped into her and her torturer would stomp on her stomach and force water out of her through all her orifices.
She was beaten, burnt and kicked on the jaw in an attempt to break her. She could not walk, lost all her fingernails and had broken bones everywhere, including her skull. Her five-year-old daughter, Dawn, was dangled from a tree and her torturers threatened to roast her child alive with charcoal burning beneath her.
Despite being tortured and thrown into prison by the Japanese military police, Sybil never divulged information about the resistance movement. She survived the ordeal although her health was severely affected after the various injuries sustained during her incarceration.
When Malaya was liberated in 1945, Sybil was flown to Britain for medical treatment. She was awarded the George Medal for Gallantry, the only Malaysian woman to receive the medal for bravery.
The two-storey shophouse at 74 Main Street in Papan now belongs to a private individual and is open to tourists for viewing. The shooting of the drama was done entirely in Perak and also at the house, from last December to early February this year. Everything mentioned in her memoir No Dram of Mercy was preserved in the house, including the well-concealed hole under the staircase where the radio was hidden.
A story we should all know
Sybil Kathigasu died in 1948, in Lanark, Scotland, from acute septicaemia brought on by her previous injury sustained during her torture. In 1949, her remains were returned to Ipoh, where a huge crowd paid tribute and accompanied her cortege to her final resting place in the grounds of St Michael’s Church.
