Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

The Taipei 228 Memorial Museum is reopening its doors to the public this morning after a 10-month renovation, but its efforts to reveal the truth of the 228 Incident met with challenges as pro--independence activists and family members of the incident’s victims yesterday accused the museum of glorifying the acts of the then-government and distorting the truth with its selection of documents.

The renovated interior design and the documents on display in the permanent exhibition, they said, turned the museum into a bright and beautiful hall that reflected little of the tragic event, and described the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime’s bloody crackdown on demonstrators in 1947 as the government’s exercise of authority.

The National Archives Administration of the Republic of China in-exile holds thousands of letters from condemned prisoners that were never delivered.  The tragic letters were written from political prisoners before execution, their last words to loved ones.

In an apparent attempt to hide the crimes committed by the ROC during the White Terror era, when a brutal martial law was imposed on Taiwan, the last letters were kept from family members.