Terror Háza
Double Occupation (Kettős Megszállás)
Hungarian Nazis (Nyilas Terem)
Soviet “Advisors” (Szovjet Tanácsadók)
Resettlement and Deportation (Kitelepítés)
Surrender of Property and Land (Beszolgáltatás)
“Justice” (Igazságszolgálatás)
“Hungarian Silver” (Magyar Ezüst)
1956 Uprising (’56 Forradalom)
Room of Farewell (Búcsú Terme)
Along one of the prettiest stretches of urban Budapest, in the house at 60 Andrássy Boulevard, some of the most horrific acts in Hungarian history took place. The former headquarters of two of the country’s darkest regimes—the Arrow Cross (Nazi-occupied Hungary’s version of the Gestapo) and the ÁVO/ÁVH (communist Hungary’s secret police)—is now, fittingly, an excellent museum that recounts those times of terror. The high-tech, conceptual, and sometimes over-the-top exhibits attempt to document the atrocities endured by Hungary during the 20th century. This is a powerful experience, particularly for elderly Hungarians who knew both victims and perpetrators and have personal memories of the terrors that came with Hungary’s “double occupation.”
Cost: 2,000 Ft, possibly more for special exhibits.
Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, closed Mon, last entry 30 minutes before closing.
Getting There: It’s located at Andrássy út 60, district VI, near the Vörösmarty utca stop of the M1/yellow Metró line. Note that this is Vörösmarty utca, not Vörösmarty tér (which is a different stop). Outside, an overhang casts the shadow outline of the word “TERROR” onto the building.
Audioguide and Information: The 1,500-Ft English audioguide is good but almost too thorough, and can be difficult to hear over the din of Hungarian soundtracks in each room. You can’t fast-forward through the dense and sometimes long-winded commentary. As an alternative, my self-guided tour covers the key points. A silver plaque in each room provides the basics (in English), and each room is stocked with free English fliers providing more in-depth information (very similar to what’s covered by the audioguide). Tel. 1/374-2600, www.terrorhaza.hu.
Length of This Tour: 1.5-2 hours.
Services: Café, good bookshop, and WCs.
Photography: Not allowed inside.
Starring: Fascism, communism, and the resilient Hungarian spirit.
In the lead-up to World War II, Hungary initially allied with Hitler—both to retain a degree of self-determination and to try to regain its huge territorial losses after World War I’s devastating Treaty of Trianon (see here). As the rest of Europe fell into war, Hungary tiptoed between supporting the Nazis and, wherever possible, charting its own course. The Hungarians found themselves in the unenviable position of providing a buffer between Nazi Germany to the west and the Soviet Union to the east. They did just enough to stay in the Nazis’ good graces (the Hungarian Second Army invaded the Soviet Union in 1941), while attempting to maintain what autonomy they could.
Hitler finally got fed up with Hungary’s less-than-wholehearted support, and in March of 1944, the Nazi-affiliated Arrow Cross Party was forcibly installed as Hungary’s new government. The Arrow Cross immediately set to work exterminating Budapest’s Jews (most of whom had survived until then, although they had suffered under the earlier regime’s anti-Semitic laws). The Nazi surrogates deported nearly 440,000 Jewish people to Auschwitz, murdered thousands more on the streets of Budapest, and executed hundreds in the basement of this building. (For more on this ugly time, see here.)
The Red Army entered Hungary from the USSR in late August of 1944. After a hard-fought battle (and a devastating siege), they took Budapest on February 13, 1945, and forced the last Nazi soldier out of Hungary on April 4. Although the USSR characterized this as the “liberation” of Hungary, it soon became clear that the Hungarians had merely gone from the Nazi frying pan into the Soviet fire. Here in Budapest, the new communist leaders took over the same building as headquarters for their secret police (the ÁVO, later renamed ÁVH). To keep dissent to a minimum, the secret police terrorized, tried, deported, or executed anyone suspected of being an enemy of the state.
Critics of this museum point out that it doesn’t draw a very fine distinction between these two very different phases of the “double occupation.” As you tour the exhibits, remember that as similar as their methods might seem, the Nazis and the communists represented opposite extremes of the political spectrum. Hungarians, like so many others in the 20th century, got caught in the cross fire.
• Buy your ticket (and rent an audioguide, if you wish) and head into the museum.
The atrium features a Soviet T-54 tank, symbolizing the looming threat of violence that helped keep both regimes in power. Tanks like this one rolled into Hungary to crush the 1956 Uprising. Behind the tank, stretching to the ceiling, is a vast wall covered with 3,200 portraits of people who were murdered by the Nazis or the communists in this very building.
• The one-way exhibit begins two floors up, then spirals down to the cellar—just follow signs for Kiállítás/Exhibition. To begin, you can either take the elevator (to floor 2), or walk up the red stairwell nearby, decorated with old Socialist Realist sculptures from the communist days (including, near the base of the stairs, two subjects you won’t find at Memento Park: Josef Stalin and Mátyás Rákosi, the most severe communist leader of Hungary).
Once upstairs, the first room gives an overview of the...
The video by the entrance sets the stage for Hungary’s 20th century: its territorial losses after World War I; its alliance with, then invasion by, the Nazis; and its “liberation,” then occupation, by the USSR (described earlier, under “Background”).
The TV screens on the partition in the middle of the room show grainy footage of both sides of the “double occupation”: the Nazis on the black side and the Soviets (appropriately) on the red side. Do a slow counterclockwise loop, starting with the black (Nazi) side. See Hitler speaking and saluting in occupied Hungary, and Nazis goose-stepping down Andrássy út. The giant, ironic quote reads, “Last night I dreamed that the Nazis were gone...and nobody else came.”
But come they did. The giant picture of the destroyed Chain Bridge (on the far wall) shows the passing of the torch between the two regimes and is a chilling reminder that these two equally brutal groups, which employed similar means of terror, were sworn enemies: As the Soviets’ Red Army approached from the east to liberate Hungary, the Nazis made a last stand in Budapest (Hitler, who considered the Danube a natural border, ordered them never to retreat). The Nazis destroyed all of the bridges across the Danube (some without warning, while they were filled with civilians), then holed up on Castle Hill. The Soviets laid siege for 100 days, gradually devastating the city.
Circling around to the red (Soviet) side, you see Budapest in the aftermath of World War II and the early days of Soviet rule. The telephones on the wall play Hungarian sound clips from the time.
• Go through the Passage of Hungarian Nazis, decorated with the words of a proclamation by Arrow Cross leader Ferenc Szálasi (there’s also a WC). Continue into the room of...
The table is set with Arrow Cross china, bearing a V-for-victory emblem with a laurel wreath. At the head of the table stands an Arrow Cross uniform. Examine the armband: The red and white stripes are an old Hungarian royal pattern, dating from the days of St. István, and the insignia combines arrows, a cross, and an “H” for Hungary. On the loudspeaker, Arrow Cross leader Ferenc Szálasi preaches about reclaiming a “Greater Hungary” and about fighting against the Jews and the insidious influence of their Bolshevism. On the far wall, the footage of the frozen river shows where many of those Jews ended up: unceremoniously shot into the icy Danube. Listen for the sickening, periodic splash...splash...splash....
• As you leave the room, the exhibit subtly (perhaps too subtly) turns the page from the Nazi period to the communist one.
After the Red Army drove the Nazis out of Hungary, they quickly set to work punishing people who had backed their enemies. Being sent to a gulag was one particularly hard fate.
The word “gulag” refers to a network of secret Soviet prison camps, mostly in Siberia. These were hard-labor camps where potential and actual dissidents were sent in order to punish them, remove their dangerous influence from society, and make an example of those who would dare to defy the regime. The Soviets euphemistically told them they were going away for “a little work” (malenki robot). It was an understatement.
On the carpet, a giant map of the USSR shows the locations of some of these camps, where an estimated 600,000 to 700,000 Hungarian civilians and prisoners of war were sent...about half of whom never returned. And that only represents a tiny fraction of the millions of people from throughout Europe and the USSR thought to have perished in the gulag system. The lighted cones locate specific camps, with artifacts from those places. Video screens show grainy footage of transfer trains clattering through an icy countryside, gruesome scenes from the camps, and prisoner testimony. (For more on the atrocious conditions in the gulag, see sidebar on here.)
People of Germanic heritage living in Hungary were targeted for deportation, but—due to a strict Moscow-imposed quota system—nobody was immune. Among the gulag victims was the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who had rescued many Hungarian Jews from the Nazis (see here).
Those who survived their experience with “corrective forced labor” were often not allowed to return to their families, and if they did, were sworn to secrecy...never allowed to tell of the horrors of the gulag until after 1989. The last Hungarian gulag prisoner, András Toma, finally returned from Siberia in 2000, having been interned in a mental hospital for decades after the gulags were dissolved—two years in a gulag followed by 53 years in an asylum. The doctors, unfamiliar with his tongue-twisting Hungarian language, assumed he was simply mad.
This locker room—with rotating figures dressed alternately in Arrow Cross and communist uniforms—satirizes the readiness of many Hungarians to align themselves with whomever was in power. The sped-up video shows turncoat guards changing their uniforms. While it seems absurd that someone’s allegiance could shift so quickly, many of these people were told that they’d be executed if they did not switch...or they could “change clothes,” admit their mistake in joining the Arrow Cross, and pledge allegiance to the new communist regime. For most, it was an easy choice. Many people (including Cardinal József Mindszenty) were imprisoned by both regimes—and it’s entirely plausible that they saw the same guards dressed in both uniforms.
Of course, the transition was not always so straightforward. The insinuation of the communist regime into the fabric of Hungary was a gradual process. From the Red Army’s “liberation” in 1945 until 1948, a power struggle raged between pro-democracy factions and the Soviet-backed communist puppet leaders. The voting booths at the beginning of this room symbolize that, at first, the Soviets fostered an illusion of choice for the Hungarian people. Elections were held throughout the Soviet satellite states in the mid-1940s, with the assumption that the communist Hungarian Workers’ Party would sweep into power. But in the 1945 parliamentary elections, the communists won only 17 percent of the vote. After this, the Soviets gradually eliminated opposition leaders by uncovering “plots,” then executing the alleged perpetrators. In the following two elections, they also stacked the deck by allowing workers to vote as often as they liked—often five or six times apiece (using the blue ballot cards you’ll see in the voting booths). Even so, in the 1947 election, the communists still had to disqualify 700,000 opposition votes in order to win. (And you thought “hanging chads” were aggravating.)
Once in power, the Hungarian Workers’ Party ruled with an iron fist and did away with the charade of elections entirely. Hungary became a “People’s Republic” and was reorganized on the Soviet system. Private property was nationalized, the economy became fully socialistic, and the country fell into poverty.
Not that you’d know any of this from the sanitized, state-sponsored images of the time. In the voting booths, screens show a loop of communist propaganda from the 1950s. Lining the walls are glossy communist-era paintings, celebrating the peasants of the “people’s revolution” (farmers, soldiers, and sailors looking boldly to the future), idyllic scenes of communities coming together, and romanticized depictions of communist leaders (Lenin as the brave sailor; Mátyás Rákosi—the portly, bald communist leader of Hungary—as the kindly grandfather, gladly receiving flowers from a sweet young girl). Imagine the societal schizophrenia bred by the communists’ good-cop, bad-cop methods: pretending to be a bunch of nice guys while at the same time terrorizing the people.
The distorted stage separates these two methods of people-control. The stretched-out images of Lenin, Rákosi, and Stalin imply the falsehood of everything we’ve just seen; backstage is the dark underbelly of the regime—the constant surveillance that bred paranoia among the people. The cases at the end display documentation for show trials. We’ll learn more about these means of terror as we progress.
These “advisors” were more like supervisors. On the wall plaque is a list of the Soviet ambassadors to Hungary, who wielded terrific influence over the communist leaders here. Yuri Andropov, the ambassador during the 1956 Uprising, helped set up the ÁVH secret police and later became the Soviet premier. So shocked was Andropov at how quickly the uprising had escalated, that he later advocated for cracking down violently at the first signs of unrest in the empire (think of the Soviet tanks rolling into Czechoslovakia during the 1968 Prague Spring).
The desk displays items from the ambassador’s office, and the video screens show footage of the ambassador garnering goodwill by visiting families, factories, and so on. A portrait of Stalin slyly surveys the scene.
In the passage, a TV plays an idyllic propaganda video of happy and productive farmers, with swelling music to rouse the Hungarian patriotic spirit.
It wasn’t all upbeat and shiny. This room—empty aside from three very different kitchen tables—symbolizes the way that resistance to the regime emerged in every walk of life. Each table and chair represents a different social class: countryside peasant, middle-class urbanite, and bourgeoisie. On each table is a propaganda message that was printed by that dissident (and now used as evidence in their interrogation). Notice that, like the furniture, these messages evolve in sophistication from table to table. A screen facing each table shows footage of an accused person from that class, labeled with how many years (év) each one spent in prison.
• Go down the stairs, and enter the room about...
The creation of small nations from sprawling empires at the end of World War I had also created large minority groups, which could upset the delicate ethnic balance of a new country. Having learned this lesson, the Soviets strove to create homogenous states without minorities. Ethnic cleansing on a staggering scale—or, in the more pleasant parlance of the time, “mutual population exchange”—took place throughout Central and Eastern Europe in the years following World War II (for example, three million ethnic Germans were forced out of Czechoslovakia). In Hungary, 230,000 Germans were uprooted and deported. Meanwhile, Hungarians who had become ethnically “stranded” in other nations after the Treaty of Trianon were sent to Hungary (100,000 from Slovakia, 140,000 from Romania, and 70,000 from Yugoslavia). Most have still not returned to their ancestral homes.
Notice the doorbell on the plaque at the beginning of the room. Press the white button to hear the jarring sound that hundreds of thousands of people heard in the middle of the night, when authorities showed up at their doorstep to tell them they had to pack up and move. These people were forced to sign an “official agreement of repatriation” (see the deportation paperwork on the wall), and then were taken away by the ÁVO. They were strictly limited in the number of belongings they could bring; the rest was left behind, carefully inventoried, and folded into the wealth of the upwardly mobile Party bureaucrats—represented by the fancy black sedan with plush hammer-and-sickle upholstery draped in black in the middle of the room.
In the hallway at the end of this section (after the WCs), peer into the haunting torture cell. Inside you’ll see original items used to beat and torture prisoners.
With the descent of the communist cloak, people were forced to surrender their belongings to the government. Land was redistributed. Even those who came out ahead in this transaction—formerly landless peasants—found that it was a raw deal, as they were now expected to meet often-impossible production quotas. The Soviet authorities terrorized the peasant class in order to pry as many people as possible away from their old-fashioned farming lifestyles (not to mention deeply held Hungarian traditions), and embrace the industrialization of the new regime. Some 72,000 wealthy peasants called kulaks, who did not want to turn over their belongings, ended up on a list to be deported; all told, some 300,000 people were eventually ejected. (Eventually the regime sidestepped the peasant-farmer “middleman” completely, as farms were simply collectivized and run as giant units.)
Of the produce grown in Hungary, a significant amount was sent to other parts of the Soviet Bloc, leading to rampant shortages. The Hungarian people had to survive on increasingly sparse rations. Enter the labyrinth of pork-fat bricks, which remind old-timers of the harsh conditions of the 1950s (lard on bread for dinner). Look for the ration coupons, which people had to present before being allowed to buy even these measly staples. The pig hiding out in the maze is another symbol of these tough times. Traditionally, peasants would slaughter a pig in order to sustain themselves through the winter. But the communist authorities could seize that pig for their own uses, leaving the farmers to rely on the (unreliable) government to provide for their families. To avoid this, many farmers would slaughter their pigs illegally in the cellar, instead of out in the open.
The communist secret police (State Security Department, or ÁVO, later called the State Security Authority, or ÁVH) began as a means to identify and try war criminals. But the organization quickly mutated into an apparatus for intimidating the common people of Hungary—equivalent to the KGB in the Soviet Union. Before they were finished, the ÁVO/ÁVH imprisoned, abused, or murdered one person from every third Hungarian family. On the wall are pictures of secret police leaders and a Rákosi quote: “The ÁVH is the fist of the Party.” This organization infiltrated every walk of Hungarian life. Factory workers and farmers, writers and singers, engineers and doctors, teenagers and senior citizens, even Party leaders and ÁVO/ÁVH officers were vulnerable. Their power came from enlisting untold numbers of civilians as informants (see sidebar, next page).
Gábor Péter was the first director of the ÁVO/ÁVH. Like many former communist leaders, Péter wound up a prisoner himself (notice the prison motif lurking around the edges of the room). It became an almost expected part of the life cycle of a communist bigwig to eventually be fingered as an enemy...the more power you gained, the better an example you became. (In Péter’s case, it didn’t help that he was Jewish—anti-Semitism didn’t leave Hungary when the Arrow Cross left.) It was abundantly clear that nobody was safe. Péter went to his grave in 1993 without remorse for his participation in the Soviet regime.
The foot soldiers of the secret police were civilians—workaday people who informed on their friends and neighbors in vast numbers. Anything could be cause for suspicion, even just not clapping quite hard enough at a Hungarian Workers’ Party rally. The regime routinely turned family members against one another. They were just as likely to compel you to implicate your father or brother as your neighbor or co-worker. Pavlik Morozov, a Soviet boy, was the literal poster child for this, after he informed on his own father. It was common to simultaneously be an informant and be informed upon by someone else.
Imagine being a man or woman on the street in 1950s Budapest. Like most people on this planet, you are basically apolitical—you couldn’t care less who’s in charge, as long as you can raise your family in peace and prosperity. One day on your way to work, a black van pulls up next to you, and in a blur, you’re pulled inside. An intimidating agent asks you to report on your friends’ water-cooler conversations—particularly any statements against the regime, no matter how casual. When you hesitate, the agent says, “Your son András is so very bright. It would be a shame if he could not attend university.” Or maybe, “You appear to have a promising career in engineering ahead of you. And yet, it is so difficult to find employment in your chosen field. Well, there’s always ditch-digging.”
The decision about whether to collaborate with the secret police suddenly becomes muddled. (Which would you choose? Are you sure?) Some people refused and endured years or decades of misery. Others capitulated, enjoyed relatively fulfilling lives, but regretted selling out their friends and even their families. In post-communist Hungary, both groups wonder if they made the right choice.
This room explores the concept of “show trials”—high-profile, loudly publicized, and completely choreographed trials of people who had supposedly subverted the regime. The burden of proof was on the accused, not on the accuser, and coerced confessions were fair game. From 1945 until the 1956 Uprising, more than 71,000 Hungarians were accused of political crimes, and 485 were executed.
The TV screen shows various show trials, including the one for Imre Nagy (leader of the 1956 Uprising—see here) and his associates. Nagy was found guilty and executed in 1958.
In some cases—as in Nagy’s—the defendants had defied the regime. But in many cases, the accused were innocent. (The authorities simply wanted to make an example of someone—guilt or innocence was irrelevant.) For example, if there was a meat shortage, they’d arrest and try slaughterhouse workers, ferreting out the ones who “didn’t do their best.” They might even execute the foreman. Not only did this intimidate all of the others to work harder, it also kept people who had gained some small measure of power in check.
The area behind the stage names the judges of these trials, with photos of some of them. Looking at these people, consider that it was not unusual for judges who had conducted show trials to later go on trial themselves.
Next you’ll encounter another, more upbeat method for controlling the people: bright, cheery communist propaganda. The motivational film (on the right) extols the value of productivity. Find the chalkboard where workers would keep track of the “work competition” (munkaverseny hiradó) by noting the best workers and how far above the average productivity they achieved.
The next room shows how advertising became more colorful in the 1970s and 1980s. (Because there was no real competition in the marketplace, glossy posters were relatively rare.) Look at a few of the posters: Several tout Bambi Narancs, the first Hungarian soft drink (from a time when Coke and Pepsi were pipe dreams). The poster about the Amerikai Bogár warns of the threat of the “American Beetle” (from Kolorádó), which threatened Hungarian crops. When the communists collectivized traditional family farm plots, they removed the trees and hedgerows that separated them—thereby removing birds that had kept pest populations in check. When a potato beetle epidemic hit, rather than acknowledging their own fault, the communists blamed an American conspiracy.
This was a nickname for aluminum, which was produced in large quantities from local bauxite (the pile of rocks in the middle of the room). The items that line the walls, made of this communist equivalent of “silver,” lampoon the lowbrow aesthetic of that era.
In 1949, nearly 7 out of every 10 Hungarians identified themselves as Catholics. Over the next four decades, that number declined precipitously. The communist regime infiltrated church leadership, and bishops, priests, monks, and nuns filled Hungarian prisons. Many people worshipped in private (hence the glowing cross hidden under the floorboards). Those who were publicly faithful were discriminated against, closely supervised by the secret police, and often arrested. As things mellowed in the 1960s and 1970s, it was easier to be openly religious, but people of faith were still considered an “enemy of the class” and risked being blacklisted (they might have difficulty finding a job, or their children could be denied an education). Hungarians had to choose between church and success. The loudspeakers at the end of the room, which belched communist propaganda, stand at odds with the vestments.
The next hallway contains a tribute to Cardinal József Mindszenty, who was arrested and beaten by the communists and later sought refuge in the US embassy for 15 years (see sidebar on here).
The stories that later emerged from the Soviet gulag system and the equivalent Hungarian work camps are unthinkably nauseating. Prisoners lived in makeshift barracks with wide gaps between the boards, allowing freezing winter winds to howl through. They were forced to do backbreaking manual labor (such as quarrying stone) and were punished when they failed to meet their impossible daily quotas. Nutrition was laughable—prisoners would become walking skeletons in short order. While the gulags were not formally “death camps,” many prisoners died of exposure, overwork, accidents, punishment, and disease. Two unlucky prisoners, who had served time both at the Nazi-run Dachau Concentration Camp and at the communist Recsk work camp in Hungary, reported that conditions had been better at Dachau.
It’s particularly appalling to think that many innocent people were sent to work camps. One prisoner explained that he was accidentally arrested because his name was similar to a suspect’s; however, by the time the mistake was sorted out, it was too late to let him go...so off he went to the camp. Another prisoner was recruited by the secret police to make a list of the people he knew to be dissidents. Instead he made a list of the people he disliked the most, then signed his own name at the bottom. Later, a black van pulled up to him on the street and he was thrown in the back—face-to-face with all of the people he’d turned in.
And yet, for some prisoners, their time in a work camp was strangely enjoyable. They were surrounded by other intelligent people, with nothing to do all day but engage in enlightening conversation while they worked. Think of the Greek myth of Sisyphus, who is condemned to spend eternity rolling a stone up a hill again and again. Some philosophers optimistically believe that the only thing Sisyphus could do was to resolve to be happy. (One good book about the work camp experience, by George Faludy, has the insightful title My Happy Days in Hell.)
One university professor was not actually imprisoned but became unemployable because he was outspoken. He could find work only as a ditch-digger...and looked forward to going to his job every day, so he could engage in long conversations with his fellow ousted professors, who dug ditches alongside him.
Hungary’s work camps were closed soon after Stalin’s death in 1953. The regime denied their existence, and the topic was taboo through the 1980s. People whose relatives had perished in these camps could not speak of it for decades. Only after 1989 have these families been allowed to mourn publicly.
• Now head down to the basement in a creepy...
The elevator gradually lowers into the cellar. As it descends, you’ll watch a three-minute video of a guard explaining the grotesque execution process.
• When the door opens, you’re in the...
As you exit the elevator, a movie shows this cellar when it was first reclaimed in the 1980s. It’s chilling to think of this space’s history: In the early 1950s, it was the scene of torture; in 1956, it became a clubhouse of sorts for the local communist youth. It has been reconstructed and now looks as it might have circa 1955.
Wander through former cells used for different purposes. On the right side of the hall are a “wet cell” (where the prisoner was forced to sit in water) and a cramped “foxhole cell” (where the prisoner was forced to crouch). On the left side are a “standing cell” (where the prisoner was forced to stand 24 hours a day) and a padded cell. On both sides, you’ll also see standard cells with photos of the men who once filled them.
In the large room after the cells, you’ll see a stool with a lamp; nearby are the torture devices: hot pads and electrical appliances. The bucket and hose were used to revive torture victims who had blacked out. Interrogations would normally happen at night, after food, water, and sleep had been withheld from the prisoner for days. Communist interrogators employed techniques still beloved by some torture connoisseurs today, such as “stress positions”...though waterboarding was still just a glimmer in some young sadist’s eye. Simple beatings, however, were commonplace.
After the torture room, a small room on the right contains a gallows that was used for executions (described earlier on your journey, in the elevator video).
As you think of the people who were imprisoned and murdered here, feel the vibration of traffic on Andrássy út just outside—these victims were so close to the “normal” world, yet so far away.
While the most notorious gulag network was in Siberia, a similar system also emerged in the Soviet satellites, such as Hungary, which had its own network of prison camps (including a secret one at a quarry overlooking the village of Recsk, not far from Eger—symbolized by the pile of rocks in the center of the room). In just three years (1945-1948), more than 40,000 people were sent to such camps, and the practice continued until 1953. The subtitled video shows a wealthy woman talking about her own experience being sent to one such camp to “learn how to work.”
This room commemorates the 1956 Uprising (see here). The Hungarian flag with a hole cut out of the middle (a hastily removed Soviet emblem) and the slogan Ruszkik Haza! (“Russkies go home!”) are important symbols of that time. The clothes and bicycle recall the “Pest Youth,” teenagers and preteens who played a major role in the uprising. The Molotov cocktail—a bottle of flammable liquid with a cloth wick—was a weapon of choice for the uprisers. Screens show the events of ’56.
In the next room (Megtorlás) stand six symbolic gallows—actually used for executions (though not in this building). Children’s voices quietly read aloud the names of some of those killed in the aftermath of 1956. Some 230 were formally executed, while another 15,000 were indicted. (On the gallows, see the legal paperwork for execution.)
More than 200,000 Hungarians simply fled the country after the uprising. A wall of postcards commemorates these emigrants, who flocked to every corner of the Western world. Once they reached Austrian refugee camps, these desperate Hungarians could choose where to go—the US offered to fly them anywhere in America to get them started. A video screen shows people leaving Hungary and arriving at their destination, with the help of the United States. Only 11,000 of them would eventually return to their homeland.
This somber memorial commemorates all of the victims of the communists from 1945 to 1967 (when the final prisoners were released from this building).
This room shows several color video clips that provide a (relatively) happy ending: the festive and exhilarating days in 1991 when the Soviets departed, making way for freedom; the reburial of the Hungarian hero, Imre Nagy, at Heroes’ Square; and the dedication of this museum. In the film that shows the Soviets’ goodbye, watch for the poignant moment when the final Russian officer crosses the bridge on foot, with a half-hearted salute and a look of relief.
The chilling finale: walls of photographs of the “victimizers”—members and supporters of the Arrow Cross and ÁVO, many of whom are still living and who were never brought to justice. The Hungarians have a long way to go to reconcile everything they lived through in the 20th century. For many of them, this museum is an important first step.
