Kuo Peng-cheng was the first to speak at the seminar. “We can forgive, but never forget the lessons of history,” he recalled the last words of his father Bo Yang, or Kuo Ting-sheng, said before the onetime political prisoner passed away May 17, 2008.
Bo Yang, a renowned human rights activist and victim of the White Terror, had been arrested and imprisoned for translating a Popeye comic strip as a sarcastic retort to the Kuomintang President Chiang Kai-shek’s authoritarian rules.
“I always tell youngsters today that his perseverance and strong will during such hard times is truly admirable,” Kuo added. “What we enjoy nowadays stems from the tears and blood shed by freedom fighters of the past.”
Lu He-ruo, once praised as “Taiwan’s No. 1 intellectual,” was accused as a communist spy. His son Lu Fang-hsiung told the audience that his father died suddenly while escaping, perhaps due to a snake bite. His body has never been found.
Huang Hsin-hua’s father Huang Hsien-chung and her pregnant mother were both accused and jailed for being communist spies in 1951. She was born in the prison and sent to an orphanage right after her birth.
Her father was executed one year after the accusation. But her main regret lies in that she was not allowed to reunite with her mother until she was five years old. On top of that, she was unable to find her elder brother Huang Wei-min until 60 years later, after authorities released her father’s will and related documents.
When she found Huang Wei-min, he was very ill due to cancer. “If only the government could have given us my father’s will earlier, my pain could have been greatly lessened,” Huang Hsin-hua said.
The ministry hopes to see more people’s accounts shared with the public. “Not just political victims, every one of us should tell stories of our own,” said Wang Shu-fang, director of the MOC’s Department of Humanities and Publications.
“The Story Telling Seminar aims to gather common life experiences, share common memories and convert historical assets into concern for others,” Wang added. (SSC-GW)
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