Pastor Alex Cho’s collection of Holocaust artifacts are housed inside the Taiwan Holocaust Peace Memorial, what Cho calls the “smallest Holocaust museum in the world.” As Taiwan reckons with its own past, Cho is also hoping to teach Taiwanese people, and particularly Christians, about the Holocaust beyond the walls of the museum.
Lack of historical and cultural context of the Holocaust has led to events that make international news headlines, like in 2016 when a Taiwanese school hosed a “Nazi rally.”
This year, for the first time, the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy cohosted Holocaust Remembrance Day, where President Tsai also reflected on transitional justice in Taiwan. “The scars of the Holocaust continue to remind us of our responsibility to ensure such a tragedy never happens again,” she said. “For us in Taiwan, this responsibility starts with confronting and understanding Taiwan’s authoritarian past.”
Ian Rowen, an assistant professor of social science at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, has said comparisons between Taiwan’s White Terror and the Holocaust were a stretch, though their significance to their respective states are comparable.
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