National Museum of Human Rights - Green Island White Terror Memorial Park Introduction
The "White Terror Green Island Memorial Park" was originally known as the "Green Island Human Rights Cultural Park." It is located at No. 20, Jiangjunyan, Gunguan Village, Green Island Township, Taitung County, covering an area of approximately 32 hectares at the northeast corner of Green Island. The park has witnessed various periods of prison culture, including the Burning Island Refugee Center, the New Life Guidance Institute, and the Oasis Villa, serving as a site of severe human rights violations by an authoritarian government. The architectural group, natural, and ecological landscape of the entire park represent the long-term interaction process between humans and nature, combining various cultural assets and landscape into a cultural landscape. During the Martial Law period, the "White Terror Green Island Memorial Park" was a detention place for military, political, and public security cases; it served as the New Life Guidance Institute from 1951 to 1970, and as the Oasis Villa from 1972 to 1987 (when it was a military reform prison). The Oasis Villa was built in response to the 1970 Taiyuan Incident, featuring a high-walled closed prison, which significantly differed in spatial form from the New Life Guidance Institute. The "White Terror Green Island Memorial Park" holds special significance in the history of Taiwan's human rights movement. Each era carried its own sense of helplessness and lament, and the park was born during a politically sensitive period, initially used solely for the imprisonment of political prisoners and dissidents. The "White Terror Green Island Memorial Park" is located in front of Jiangjunyan in Gunguan Village, Green Island, encompassing Jiangjunyan, the Human Rights Memorial Park, the Oasis Villa, and Zhuangjing Camp. Among them, the Oasis Villa and the New Life Guidance Institute were places where reformative education and ideological transformation took place. Entering the park, one can feel the heavy and oppressive atmosphere, making it a great place to learn about the history of the White Terror in Taiwan and the development of human rights. The Oasis Villa, previously the Ministry of National Defense's Green Island Reform Prison, was completed in 1972 and successively housed political prisoners transferred from Taiyuan Prison and various military prisons, fully preserving the towering walls, barbed wires, playground, auditorium, bagua tower, solitary confinement rooms, and 52 small and large cells from the past. To the right of the entrance in front of the Oasis Villa is a cave called "Ghost Gate," which was once the only way to enter the Oasis Villa. Passing through the Ghost Gate means that the chance of survival is bleak. Inside the Oasis Villa, many historical materials related to the White Terror period are displayed, and the narrow prison with its dim and heavy atmosphere is still haunting even years later. The New Life Guidance Institute, in the early 39th year of the Republic of China (1950), became the largest labor reform concentration camp due to the overcrowding of political prisoners in prisons across Taiwan, with most being sent to Green Island to undergo endless labor and ideological transformation. The current New Life Guidance Institute recreates past squad accommodations, classrooms, kitchens, etc. Upon entering the room, one can see lifelike wax figures; in the small dormitory (cell), about 120 to 160 people lived, each having to sleep stacked side by side and struggling even to turn over. This allows one to truly feel their discomfort and unfair treatment, with only a short hour before bed to write letters home, play chess, or practice the violin or erhu, slightly relieving the mental and physical oppression they endured. The Human Rights Memorial Park features a monument and an uneven grassy area designed to symbolize the dark times and unequal treatment buried underground at that time. The Human Rights Monument symbolizes the pursuit of freedom from fear in a new era, specially commenced on International Human Rights Day in the 88th year of the Republic of China (1999), also known as the "Weeping Monument." Its spiral structure channels rainwater from the two adjacent drainage channels into the center point, resembling tears. Next to it is an inscription titled the "Weeping Monument," with a famous quote from writer Bai Yang: "In that era, how many mothers cried through the long nights for their children imprisoned on this island." These 28 words encapsulate the suffering of that time.
