Author Chris van Laak
Photographer Chris van Laak, Lai liang ming
On a sunny day in February when Taiwan’s mild winter is at its best, the Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park is strikingly beautiful.
After walking through the gate of what once was a prison that housed many Taiwanese who had done nothing illegal by today’s standards, I felt a bit guilty about my first impression. The sun was shining through the crowns of trees in the former prison’s yard. Birds were singing. And I couldn’t help but be in awe.
The museum in New Taipei City’s Xindian District (新店區） was not exactly bustling with visitors, as is often the case on weekdays, maybe thanks to its rather remote location a 15-minute walk from Dapinglin MRT station(大坪林捷運站). It is, however, a must-visit place for those who are looking for a deep dive into Taiwan’s history. It is also a great place to leave the noise of the city behind and ponder the past and present.
My experience upon entering must have been vastly different from that of visitors who had passed through the gate when the prison housed political inmates, from 1967 until 1991. Many of them had just learned that a loved one was imprisoned at Jing-Mei. Their loved one might have disappeared months ago, and they might have been sick with fear ever since. (It was common practice during the White Terror era from 1949 to 1991 to keep the families of political prisoners in the dark about their loved ones’ whereabouts until an indictment was issued.)
Now, upon their first visit, some of them still had hope—or finally had hope—that their loved one would soon be found innocent and their ordeal would end.
In reality, however, not-guilty verdicts were rare. Instead suspects often confessed to crimes they had not committed. Under torture, many of them even implicated family members and friends. There is, apparently, only so much pain a human can take.
Haunted by ghosts of the past
The Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park sheds light on a long, dark time in Taiwan’s history in an impressive manner. It retells the big story, as well as some of the countless small ones.
The big story is this: The government of the Republic of China retreated to Taiwan in 1949, amid the Chinese Civil War. It then used the “Temporary Provisions against the Communist Rebellion（動員戡亂時期臨時條款）,” a set of laws that had been enacted a few months earlier, to safeguard its hold on power and prepare to “take back the mainland.” The latter did not happen, but Taiwan remained under martial law（戒嚴法） until 1987—then the longest any country had ever been under military rule.
Meanwhile, the one-party state used the “Temporary Provisions（臨時條款）” to repress all unwanted political activity. Up to 140,000 Taiwanese were imprisoned or otherwise sanctioned over their real or imagined political crimes. Officially, most of them were found guilty of Communism-related charges, such as conspiring to overthrow the ROC government on behest of Beijing.
In reality, however, they might just have said the wrong thing, been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or simply known the wrong people. Any link prosecutors could establish between a suspect and Communism would warrant a hefty sentence—and any activity critical of the government, as well as uttering the opinion that Taiwan should be independent from China, was also sanctioned and conveniently lumped together with “pro-Communist” crimes.
Among those found guilty of political crimes, 3,000-4,000 were executed.
Making it personal
The contrast between the memorial park’s serenity and the horrors that prisoners once faced there can be gut-wrenching. Take for example the first room on the tour suggested by the (highly recommended) audioguide, right left of the prison’s gate: Here the guards would process prisoners’ paperwork and spend their breaks. Next to a sofa that would fetch a handsome price in any vintage furniture shop, shackles hang on the wall under a clock that always shows 4:05 am.
That was about the time prisoners sentenced to death were led to an execution ground outside the prison. They were shackled for the trip, and the heavy chain between their feet would drag along the floor as they walked their last mile. They had only now learned their execution date.
The other inmates, who were trying to catch the sleep needed for another day of forced confessions or hard labor, would wake up from the noise. They would know exactly what was going on. Or, maybe, the sound of shackles dragging along the floor was a too-common occurrence to wake them up. Inmates had to learn how to sleep through all kinds of disturbances—the lights in their overcrowded cells, for example, were on 24 hours so the guards could supervise them at all times.
Thousands of stories
Another central piece of the park is the Human Rights Memorial. Here, the names of 7,977 Taiwanese who were imprisoned for political crimes during the White Terror era are engraved on marble blocks, along with the dates of their imprisonment. When the end date of a convict’s imprisonment is red, it means they were executed.
The National Human Rights Museum, a central government institution of which the park is a branch, is continuing to uncover, document, and pay respect to former political prisoners. The number of former inmates commemorated in the park is continuing to grow as more and more of them, or their families, consent to their inclusion.
The museum will never run out of individual stories to tell—there are simply too many of them. When I visited, a special exhibition focused on Ting Yao-tiao (丁窈窕), a young woman who was arrested in 1953 and executed three years later. Officially, her crime was reading banned books and being involved in a secret Communist Party branch centered on a post office in Tainan. In reality, she neither read banned books nor was there a secret CCP branch. Ting, who was pregnant at the time, had simply suggested a friend reject the advances of a man who turned out to be a government informant.
Facing the past head-on
The Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park is an integral part of democratic Taiwan. It is also a testament to Taiwan’s increasing willingness to accept the darkest episode of its past and showcase the stories to those who are eager to learn about them. At times such efforts are painful or even controversial, as some of those involved—on the side of the one-party state and among those prosecuted—remain involved in shaping contemporary Taiwan.
The memorial park opened in 2007, only 16 years after the end of the White Terror era. Among those who pushed for its establishment was then-vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮). She herself was imprisoned at Jing-Mei, from 1980 to 1985.
