Hungary, Day Two: House of Terror, Andrassy Boulevard

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The House of Terror (http://www.terrorhaza.hu/terror2.html) is located on Andrassy Boulevard and is a memorial and museum dedicated to the victims of the horrific Nazi and Communist occupation of Hungary (and abroad). It is particularly terrifying because of the fact that it occupies the building that was once the headquarters and location of torture for both parties, respectively. The bare, desolate prison cells in the basement have been reconstructed to their original appearance and the history of both the Hungarian victims and their oppressors is told by video, photo, literature, and other audio-visual means. For me, the most disgusting, horrifying (if I can even be so calculating) aspect of the whole museum was the first video of the tour, in which… I am sorry, this is so disturbing… in which literally hundreds and hundreds of emaciated, naked bodies were bulldozed into huge open graves. Bodies were pulled from huge, industrial ovens and bodies covered whole fields. Human bodies! Their most distinctive feature was that there were no distinctive features.

I was amazed at my companions, who could walk through the museum and seem relatively distanced. I am still haunted by these images and at the time, could not cease crying. I have been trying, in vain, to describe the feelings that I had and have. I cannot do them justice. I cannot tell you how angry I am at the nations, especially the US, that did not challenge the Nazis, in large part because the government simply did not like Jews. I cannot tell you how terrified I feel at the thought of my family turning against me in order to placate a rigid and paranoid government. I cannot tell you the hysteria I imagine at being herded into a fiery chamber to die. I cannot tell you the depth of disgust I feel for humanity’s inability to embrace each other and inability to make significant changes in the way that we help and support international brethren. I can not tell you the hopelessness I feel when I think about how we do not seem to understand peace and how no one is safe from hate and twisted, base ideology. There are no words to describe the chasm I feel within myself when I think on these atrocities.

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Comments

[James]

Room 101
The Terror House featured in the travel section of the West Australian newspaper this weekend, and by coincidence my son was reading George Orwell's 1984 for his school homework. Enough to get me googling for more information. I was once in Krakow when the opportunity arose to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, not far away, yet I chose not to go: the only purpose it could serve would be to brutalise me. The atrocities of the Cold War era, however, were better hidden by the Iron Curtain and the propaganda of the time. If I were ever to travel to Hungary, I would feel compelled to visit this museum and look for Room 101.