After the Second World War, many youths participated in the conflict surrounding the 228 Massacre. As the ensuing Chinese Civil War reached its most intense period of fighting, anti-KMT sentiment was growing rapidly in Taiwan. Members of the CCP Taiwan Province Working Committee were anxious to “liberate” Taiwan, and collected intelligence on left-leaning intellectuals, teachers, students, workers, and farmers on Taiwan with plans to foment an armed revolution.

To secure their rule, the KMT government declared martial law in 1949. They doubled their efforts in purging their ranks of Communists and conducted a ruthless suppression of rebels, right up until the peak of the White Terror in 1950. Prisoners were executed at gunpoint at Machangding on the banks of the Xindian River. The execution grounds moved in 1954 to Ankeng, now the Xindian District Third Public Cemetery.

Their remains were sent to the Elysium Funeral Parlor, now part of Linsen Park. If no family came forward to claim the remains, they would be buried at the cemetery at Liuzhangli or used as cadavers for medical students at the National Defense Medical Center. In the latter case, the name of that hospital would be written on their urns.

The 38 Year Silence of Martial Law

“When we found out there were so many graves over there in 1993, my mother and I were astonished. It’s hard to describe that feeling. It’s been over 50 years,” says Huang Hsin-hua (黃新華), a 65-year old retired teacher whose father was a victim of the White Terror.

“When I first went to see them, it was so painful. Written on a small unremarkable gravestone amongst the weeds was my father’s name: Huang Hsien-chong (黃賢忠).”

In 1951, during a government crackdown on political study groups and criminal gangs, many teachers at Yimin High School in Zhongli were arrested, including Huang Hsien-chong and his wife. A year before Hsien-chong was executed at gunpoint in 1952, his wife Yang Huan (楊環) gave birth to their daughter in prison.

“Retrieving his bones was even worse. A typhoon had just struck: fallen trees were everywhere, and the gravestone was buried by mud and rock. We spent three to four hours digging out a deep hole, and just as we were about to give up we finally noticed some fingerbone and skull fragments. Sometimes I think about it and wonder, were those actually my father’s bones? I can’t be certain, but this is all we have,” Huang says of the father she never met.

In 2000 and 2002 the Taipei City government designated the execution grounds at Machangding and the burial grounds at Liuzhangli as memorial parks, but aside from the annual “autumn rite” conducted by victims’ associations, the park at Machangding is nothing more than a place to barbeque or ride a bike. Liuzhangli has also returned to its original silence, with only researchers, family or old friends of the deceased visiting in commemoration. Today, more than 60 percent of remains have not been claimed by their families.

Liuzhangli remained outside the public eye until Taipei City Council members Jian Shu-pei (簡舒培) and Lee Chien-chang (李建昌) held a press conference there in 2015, blaming the poor state of the site on a lack of conservation efforts and stressing its historical significance as the only remaining burial ground for White Terror victims. They contrasted this treatment with the nearby gravesite of former Defense Minister Bai Chongxi (白崇禧), which received allocations in the city budget since it was designated a historic site.