House of Terror Museum

Sunday morning was a most sobering and eye-opening experience as I walked through the House of Terror Museum. My head is still reeling from all of the emotions that I felt as the horrors of the Nazi and Soviet occupation were exposed. The first room is the most shocking; TV's show graphic footage of Nazi bulldozers pushing hundreds of bodies into pits, goose-stepping troops, and the devastation of Budapest after World War II. Other TV's show Hungarians welcoming the Soviets (who had "liberated" them from Nazi Germany) with great tanks and missiles parading down the street, undoubtedly thrilled at the notion that with the Soviets will come a better life, and a better Hungary.

Boy were they wrong. Interrogation rooms, isolation chambers, a torture cell, and the most horrifying reconstructed Death Row, located in the dark, damp and moldy basement were all contributors to why this particular house was known as the "House of Horrors." Hundreds of innocent Hungarians were imprisoned, tortured, and executed here. It is awful beyond my comprehension. The very nature of the building is chilling: It had originally been used as a headquarters by Nazis, but once the Soviets came to power, they moved their headqaurters into the very same building--Andrassy Ut. 60.

It really became a reality though once Dr. Mandy started telling stories of people she knew who had lived through these terrifying times. Her neighbor was a wealthy woman in the 1940's, but one night a car showed up and the Soviets told her and her husband that their (relatively nice) house was being confiscated and they had one night to pack two bags. They were "internally deported" so to speak, and sent to the countryside; forced to live and work amongst the peasants so that they may be re-educated in the ways of the working man. Awful, just awful.

The experience touched me in a way that I hate to remember, but never want to forget.