|
Green Island, off Taiwan's east coast, used to be the
local version of Siberia, a place where hardened criminals and political
prisoners were sent to rot in uncomfortable jails.Now it has become a
major tourist destination, attracting visitors not just with its lush
scenery, but also its dark history, reflected in a sprawling prison
compound where thousands of inmates were locked up, and some died.
"When I was a little girl, my dad used to scare me by saying if I didn't
behave, he'd send me to Green Island," said one of the visitors to the
jail-turned-museum, 22-year-old Vicky Liu.
"Now I've actually seen it, and I must agree it's a bit scary to think
about how all these people were locked up together in small cells."
The island's jail compound, squeezed in between black coastal rocks and
steep green hills, was the home of several well-known dissidents in the
days when Taiwan was a right-wing one-party state.
|
|
 |
|
Now a museum and a memorial, it seeks to collect and display artefacts
from the period between 1951 and 1987 when the aim of the facility was
to re-educate inmates, sometimes by extraordinarily brutal means.
Crude drawings by former inmates are on display, showing prisoners being
beaten with long bamboo sticks or forced to kneel on broken glass.
Executions also took place in the 1950s.
These may be extreme instances of life in the prison, which had
different names, including New Life Correction Centre, and a population
of 2,000 at its peak. But few dispute that this was a place of
suffering.
"It was a kind of concentration camp," said Cheng Sheng-hsing, head of
the museum, as he eyed the azure ocean, which kept the prisoners from
fleeing better than any wall. "We want it to be a site of remembrance."
|
|
 |
|
To help a new generation better understand, the museum uses panoramas
and animations, as well as life-size wax figures showing inmates toiling
with manual labour or crammed together in large prison dormitories.
Green Island still houses a jail, although today it is a place where
democratic Taiwan puts its common criminals. However, its reputation as
a prison island does not hurt tourism.
Several shops in the town of Jhongliao sell prison-themed souvenirs,
often displaying inmates in cartoon form as sneering gangsters busy
planning daredevil escapes.
"They're not meant to depict political prisoners, so we're not opposed
to this," said Fu Chie-wei, an official with the museum.
About 80 percent of all visitors to the island, located a 40-minute
ferry journey from Taiwan proper, are young people attracted by the
famed dining and diving.
|
|
 |
|
But a growing number is also interested to hear more about the time when
Green Island doubled as Taiwan's prison in paradise.
Until a couple of decades ago, the prison area -- which took up nearly
one tenth of the island's 15 square kilometres (six square miles) -- was
strictly off limits to the locals.
"I was in my 20s when the last political prisoner left," said Chang
Hai-lang, a local worker now in his 40s.
"Generally, we didn't see them very often. But some were highly educated
and were sent to teach the local children."
As personal recollections fade of the time when the island was the last
station for Taiwan's unwanted, it becomes a matter of growing urgency
for the museum to preserve memories for posterity.
"Some people died in jail, but how many, we have no precise idea. It's
hard to come by official records, so we have to rely on oral histories,"
said He Hsing-yi, a guide at the museum.
One way testimony becomes available is when former inmates revisit the
island for emotional encounters with sites where they wasted the best
years of their lives, according to Cheng, the museum head.
"Many of the victims are now in their 70s, 80s and 90s. We're trying to
write down their histories to keep a record of what happened here," he
said.
"What impresses me is that they show no anger and no hatred. They hope
to pass their experience on, and let people know about the sacrifices
they made for freedom and democracy," said Cheng.
|