Budapest-Terror Museum (Wikimedia)
House of Terror–a deceptively mild looking office building on a beautiful boulevard.
The black awning that hangs over the building has the letters cut out: TERROR. It looks odd, but it’s an odd place.
I didn’t realize what the cutouts meant until I picked up my camera and viewed the cutouts shadow spelled out TERROR on the building.
I was so startled, I nearly dropped the camera.
Putting the camera back to my face, I looked again with my eyes: nothing.
Camera up again: Terror.
Very creepy and an excellent beginning for what came next.
Walking through the gruesome history of terror
You start at the top of the building and walk through multi-media exhibits.
They show the story of nighttime raids. (You can even push a bell that rattles your nerves to awaken innocent victims).
Videos played those old grainy photos of the grim men on the Kremlin wall watching scores of soldiers marching through the plaza. Tanks and missiles followed aimed at–well, me as a child.
I’d misplaced those scenes in my mind, buried them with drills of hiding under the desk in case of a nuclear attack.
In a flurry of tightening stomach muscles, It all came back.
In one long room, the carpeting was a giant map of middle and eastern Europe.
It spread all the way through Asia to Vladivostok, detailing the location of the labor camps.
Along the walls elderly people told their stories in Hungarian with English subtitles.
One man explained:
“They told us we were working for the good of the state in these camps.
But we were starving slaves.
How can you build a good society on the back of slaves?”
Cardinal Mindszenty shrine
One room had a lighted cross embedded in the floor, reminding us that true religion went underground for a very long time.
Another Terror House room was devoted to Cardinal Mindszenty who spent 15 years living in the US Embassy.
I’d forgotten about him, too.
I then spent 3 minutes descending to the basement in an elevator. A monitor played a video of a man describing the torture and hangings that went on in this terror house.
When the door opened into a clammy basement with a disturbing scent, I didn’t think I could go through with the rest of the tour.
Personal belongings of Cardinal Mindszenty (Wikimedia)
But there was only one way out, so I hurried past the tiny cells.
I didn’t examine the photos and tried not to shake physically when I saw the terror house gallows where the secret police hung so many Hungarians.
They tortured to death 3000 people down there.
When I finally escaped, I sat in the cafe and wept.
The House of Terror is the most horrible place I’ve ever visited.
I’m glad I did it. I hope to never have to visit such a place again.
Tweetables
Man’s inhumanity to man, displayed with dignity and horror. Click to Tweet
The House of Terror in Budapest: well named. Click to Tweet
Reviewing the Cold War where torture took place. Click to Tweet
Michelle, I visited Dachau and I know the feelings of horror and disbelief that humans could do such things to other humans. And yet here we are, just a relatively short time later, and there are those who deny such events ever occurred. Thanks for the reminder. We need to keep these atrocities in the forefront, lest they be allowed to happen again. (And, sadly, they are happening, even to our own brothers and sisters in Christ.)