BBC
Date: 3-13-2016
By: Cindy Sui
The night before Huang Wen-kung was executed, he wrote five letters to his
Pictures of Huang Wen-kung and his daughter Huang Chun-lan
Huang Wen-kung (centre and right) was one of many dissidents killed during the White Terror
family, including his five-month-old daughter whom he had never seen.
It was the first and last time he had communicated with her.
“My most beloved Chun-lan, I was arrested when you were still in your mother’s womb,” said the 1953 letter.
“Father and child cannot meet. Alas, there’s nothing more tragic than this in the world.”
His daughter only got the letter 56 years later.
“As soon as I read the first sentence, I cried,” Huang Chun-lan said. “I finally had a connection with my father. I realised not only do I have a father, but this father loved me very much.”
The letters were among some 300 papers handed to Ms Huang’s daughter
Ms Huang only received her father’s letter 56 years after he wrote it
when she applied for documents about her grandfather from government archives in 2008.
That led to archive workers finding personal writings, mostly letters to families, that another 179 political prisoners had written before they were executed during Taiwan’s “White Terror” period of suppression.
Tens of thousands of people suspected of being anti-government were arrested, and at least 1,200 executed, between 1949 and 1992. [FULL STORY]