THE HOUSE OF TERROR

The House of Terror is a place enmeshed in strong symbolic associations. The House of Terror was opened as a museum in 2002, with the aim of documenting the atrocities committed by the Nazi Arrow Cross Party in reign in Hungary from the end of 1944 to the spring of 1945, and by the Stalinist dictatorship of the Communist Party, which followed a short period of coalition rule. The building of the museum has been subject to debate from the very start. One of the debated issues is whether a museum should be set up just for presenting such a relatively short period in history. It is difficult to oppose the initiative. First of all, the two extreme political systems of terror, which have caused the death of many hundreds of thousands of people, are of such crucial importance in the history of Hungary that they deserve to be put on the pedestal when it comes to remembering history. Secondly, there are many examples, in fact it could be seen as the general practice that some sites of a historic importance give home to a museum, and the building located at number 60 Andrássy Boulevard is emblematic in itself as it had a central role in the terrors under both systems of tyranny. It is not by accident that the building was converted from the headquarters of the Arrow Cross Party to the centre of the Communist State Security Department (ÁVO). Another example for this continuity is that occupying Soviet troops moved their central security office into the Hotel Britannia, which had earlier been occupied by the Gestapo. As part of another line of discourse, the external appearance of the building was questioned. Many critics⁵ have voiced the view that the building’s “blade wall” (a partition placed on the sidewalk) and the new roof decoration do not fit organically into the relatively uniform row of villas on Budapest’s prestigious Andrássy Boulevard, not to mention that the roof decoration displays the emblems of the two extremist entities, which were banned after the political changes of 1989/90, towering above the building. From another point of view, these emblems have a rightful place for attracting attention here, as the need to create a historic memento – which, through remembering, is generally considered a risk-reducing factor preventing the atrocities from happening again – is perhaps stronger than the feelings of those who, though very understandably, do not want to face these images recalling their agonies from day to day. A third layer of the debate is that the treatment with a common denominator is disturbing and objectionable for the people or their descendants, who identified with or were involved in the two regimes, or even by those who were victims of only one of the two systems. However, as the positive function of such a museum is to say no to terror,

5 Some examples: Tamás 2002, Radnóti 2003, Ráday 2002

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methods of dictatorship and inhumanity (any form of inhumanity), it can be seen as a justifiable argument that various systems of terror should be presented under the same roof.

In fact, a connection between these two extremist periods has had its precedent: in the 1970s, the writings pointing to well-documented correspondences and continuity between the fascist-leaning Horthy era and the industrial and economic policy of Rákosi, as well as parallels between bombastic fascist art and “social realism” created a shock to their audiences.

The proportions in representation set up by the museum also received much criticism (this is the fourth field of debate). If we look at the number of victims in the two periods of dictatorship, it is indeed questionable that the museum covers communist dictatorship in much more depth (and there are other questions of weighing, which are also debatable); the scope of the presentations seems to reflect more the amount of time in history spent under the two terrorist regimes (the few months of Arrow Cross terror as opposed to more than ten years of Stalinist terror). Another part of the debate was that in the eyes of some critics, the museum has blurred the difference between the Kádár and Rákosi regimes.⁶ The House of Terror is also clearly different from the National Museum in its function, that is, its focus on terror and its articulations under various regimes, the National Museum providing a more comprehensive interpretation by presenting the Kádár-consolidation, the lifestyle of the times, and pointing also to the beginnings of pluralism.

The design of the House of Terror incorporates several aesthetic elements. Strong and emotionally loaded visual symbols have been used (a whole team of interior designers was commissioned in this work). One of the first impressions, a tank placed on a glass panel in the stairway (see Picture 1), is already shocking; the Wall of Victims: a big wall surface with pictures of hundreds of victims; the Arrow Cross room is demonic and offers a

6 Rákosi was the radical Stalinist leader of the 1950s, he – as “the best pupil of Stalin”, which was his official epitheton ornans – was responsible for the extreme terror and catastrophic state of the life standard in Hungary. The revolution in 1956 overthrew the power of his group. The new leader of the Communist Party, János Kádár, was a reformist, but he went over to the side of the Soviet army and helped them suppress the revolution. After the revolution, he was responsible for the execution of the participants of revolution, but after five years he finished the terrorist period and started reforms. As the result of these reforms, a so called “soft dictatorship” (“Goulash communism”) was installed in Hungary: he kept the restriction of human rights, but reduced the state control over the private sphere, increased the life standard and tolerated some non-communist ideological outlets (books, films, theories), if they didn’t query the base of the political system.

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disturbing, ghostly ambiance; the room of “(In)justice” with school seats covered in copies of indictments and trial documents (see Picture 2); the room of Churches with an enormous cross-shaped glass piece inserted in the floor, the Hall of Tears (with names of the victims executed between 1945 and 1967); the Hall of Compulsory State Deliveries with walls built of bricks of “pork fat” where the sensual effect of contradiction Joseph Beuys experimented with in his postmodern works can be seen to create a strong, queasy feeling by the cross-references between soft fat and hard wall bricks; the Gulag Room with its large wall-to-wall carpet of a map locating the places of forced labour camps (this and other floor-fitted installations create an uncomfortable feeling encoded instinctively in the visitor, which stems from such things as the fairy tale of the

“girl treading on bread” or the taboo of treading on pictures originating in magic, and thus unconsciously links a more sensitive conscience to perceive the world of brutality presented.) The slowly descending elevator taking the visitor to prison cells in the basement plays on even stronger stimuli, in this case it is the unusually slow motion which achieves the uneasiness which helps to identify with, if only partially, those who had been imprisoned here. The Torture Chamber with instruments of torture on display, the room of gallows and a strong claustrophobic feel radiating from the prison cells take these effects even further.

But the strong visual impetus also helps bring about catharsis, and evoke elevated feelings, as in the room towards the end of the exhibition called the “Hall of Remembering” or the “Hall of Tears”

(See Picture 3), where torches fitted on small metal crosses are displayed as if in a burial ground of soul lanterns commemorating victims. A visual (and aesthetic) consciousness appears in the two colours dominating throughout the museum, an intentional use of black and red, which are on the one hand colours symbolic of fascist and communist dictatorships and thus give a true

representation of the two eras, but on the other hand are the two satanic colours of Christian iconography, which may link the two terror eras with the symbols of Satan, the rule of the Original Evil.

(A multimedia effect is achieved with original photos and films from the period, the recollections of survivors, music and sound documentation.)

In the following section, we attempt to summarise the most explicit messages carried by the museum, and we shall mainly point to items of groups of impacts, which are still part of Hungarian political culture today, as well as historical consciousness and symbolic themes of the recent past.

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