Former Taipei Army Cemetery (Liuzhangli)

The Taipei Army Cemetery (台北陸軍墓地) was established during the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945) in the Liuzhangli (六張犁) hillside area, straddling what is now Taipei's Da'an and Xinyi districts. The cemetery served as a burial ground for Imperial Japanese Army soldiers who died during military service in Taiwan — whether from tropical diseases, combat during the pacification campaigns of the early colonial period, or garrison duty throughout the decades of Japanese rule.

The Liuzhangli area had been used as burial grounds since the Qing dynasty, owing to its hilly terrain southeast of the Taipei basin that was unsuitable for agriculture but well-suited for cemetery use. During the Japanese colonial restructuring of 1920, the area was formally designated as Liuzhangli Village (六張犁庄). The Japanese authorities organized the existing burial grounds into a more systematic cemetery complex, with separate sections for military personnel, civilian Japanese residents, and local Taiwanese. The army cemetery section contained graves marked with distinctive vertical stone towers (墓標) in the Japanese military style, bearing the names, ranks, and units of the deceased soldiers.

After Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945, and the subsequent handover of Taiwan to the Republic of China, the Japanese cemetery areas fell into neglect and became targets of anti-Japanese sentiment. Many military tombstones were vandalized, toppled, or repurposed as building materials by local residents. In 1949–1950 the Taipei city government under Mayor Yu Mi-jian (游彌堅) handed over management of the former Japanese-era municipal funeral hall at Sanbanqiao (三板橋葬儀堂) and the associated Liuzhangli burial ground to a private operator, Qian Zongfan (錢宗範), who renamed them the "Jile Funeral Parlor" (極樂殯儀館) and "Jile Cemetery" (極樂公墓) respectively.

In the 1950s, the Liuzhangli cemetery area took on a darker significance when it became a burial site for victims of the White Terror — political dissidents executed by the Kuomintang regime whose bodies went unclaimed. Approximately 200 graves from this period have been identified, with about 60–70% belonging to mainlander (外省籍) political prisoners sentenced to death between 1950 and 1953. The proximity of the former Japanese military graves and the White Terror burials creates a layered memorial landscape that spans multiple eras of political violence.

Today, the Liuzhangli cemetery area is managed by the Taipei City Mortuary Services Office. In 2003, a "Memorial Park for the Victims of Political Persecution during the Martial Law Period" (戒嚴時期政治受難者紀念公園) was established with a commemorative column. While the Japanese army cemetery section has been largely absorbed into the broader cemetery and urban development, some scattered Japanese-era tombstones and grave markers can still be found among the hillside terrain, serving as quiet witnesses to Taiwan's complex colonial and military past.