National Human Rights Museum - White Terror Memorial Park on Green Island Introduction
The "White Terror Green Island Memorial Park" was formerly known as the "Green Island Human Rights Culture Park." It is located at No. 20, Jiangjun Rock, Gongguan Village, Green Island Township, Taitung County, covering an area of approximately 32 hectares in the northeastern corner of Green Island. The park has undergone various phases of prison culture, including the Fire Island Refugee Center, the New Life Guidance Center, and the Oasis Villa, serving as a site of significant human rights violations by an authoritarian government. The architectural complex, natural landscapes, and ecological scenery of the entire park reflect the long-term interaction between people and nature, integrating various forms of cultural assets and landscapes into a cultural landscape. During the Martial Law period, the "White Terror Green Island Memorial Park" served as a detention site for military, political, and security cases; from 1951 to 1970, it operated as the New Life Guidance Center, and from 1972 to 1987, it functioned as Oasis Villa (the Ministry of National Defense Rehabilitation Prison). The Oasis Villa was built in response to the 1970 Taimall Incident as a high-walled closed prison, differing significantly from the spatial layout of the New Life Guidance Center. The "White Terror Green Island Memorial Park" holds special significance in the history of Taiwan's struggle for human rights development. Each era has its own helplessness and lament, and the park was born during a politically sensitive period, previously serving to imprison political prisoners and ideological dissidents. The park is situated in front of Jiangjun Rock in Gongguan Village, Green Island, and covers a vast area that includes Jiangjun Rock, the Human Rights Memorial Park, Oasis Villa, and the Zhuangqing Camp. Oasis Villa and the New Life Guidance Center were places for reformatory education and ideological transformation. Upon entering the park, one can feel the heavy and oppressive atmosphere, making it an excellent place to learn about Taiwan's past White Terror and the history of human rights development. Oasis Villa was previously the Green Island Rehabilitation Prison of the Ministry of National Defense. After its completion in 1972, political prisoners from Taimall Prison and various military prisons were gradually relocated here, retaining the tall walls, barbed wire, playground, auditorium, Bagua Building, solitary confinement cells, and 52 detention rooms from its past. The right entrance in front of Oasis Villa is called the Ghost Gate, which was the mandatory path to enter the villa, and passing through the Ghost Gate meant a slim chance of survival. Walking into Oasis Villa, many historic materials related to the White Terror period are displayed. The narrow prison and the gloomy atmosphere still linger, even after many years. The New Life Guidance Center, established in the early 39th year of the Republic of China (1950), was overwhelmed with political prisoners from prisons across Taiwan, most of whom were sent to Green Island for endless labor and ideological transformation, making it the largest labor reform concentration camp. The current New Life Guidance Center has reconstructed the squad dormitories, classroom areas, kitchens, etc., allowing visitors to see lifelike wax figures. In the small dormitory (cell), about 120 to 160 people had to sleep side by side in turns, making it difficult to turn over, evoking a real sense of their distress and unfair treatment at that time. They could only use the short hour before bed to write letters home, play chess, or practice violin or huqin, to slightly relieve the mental and physical pressure they endured. The Human Rights Memorial Park features a monument and uneven grassland designed to symbolize the buried dark periods and inequalities of that time. The Human Rights Memorial symbolizes the pursuit of freedom from fear in the new era, with its construction beginning on International Human Rights Day in 1999. Also known as the "Crying Monument," its spiral structure collects rainwater from the side drainage channels into the central point, resembling tears flowing. The adjacent inscription, named "Crying Monument," includes the famous writer Bo Yang's words: "In that era, how many mothers cried through the long nights for their children imprisoned on this island." These 28 characters encapsulate the suffering of that time.
