House of Terror
Terror Háza | |
House of Terror | |
| Established | 24 February 2002 |
|---|---|
| Location | Budapest, Hungary |
| Coordinates | 47°30′25″N 19°03′54″E / 47.5069°N 19.0651°E |
| Director | Mária Schmidt |
| Website | terrorhaza |
The House of Terror (Hungarian: Terror Háza Múzeum, pronounced [ˈtɛrːor ˈhaːzɒ ˈmuːzɛum]) is a museum located at Andrássy Avenue 60 in Budapest, Hungary. It contains exhibits related to the fascist and communist regimes in 20th-century Hungary and is also a memorial to the victims of these regimes, including those detained, interrogated, tortured, or killed in the building.
The museum opened on 24 February 2002, and its director general has been Mária Schmidt.
The House of Terror is a member organization of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience.[1] Visitors including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Francis Fukuyama, and Hayden White have praised the institution.[2][3]
Building
The building was previously used by the Arrow Cross Party and ÁVH.
In December 2000, the Public Foundation for the Research of Central and Eastern European History and Society purchased it with the aim of establishing a museum in order to commemorate the fascist and communist periods of Hungarian history.
During the year-long construction period, the building was fully renovated. The internal design, the final look of the museum's exhibition hall, and the external facade are all the work of architect Attila Ferenczfy-Kovács. The reconstruction plans for the museum were designed by architects János Sándor and Kálmán Újszászy. The reconstruction turned the exterior of the building into somewhat of a monument: the black exterior structure (consisting of the decorative entablature, the blade walls, and the granite footpath) provides a frame for the museum, making it stand out in sharp contrast to the other buildings on Andrássy Avenue.
Permanent exhibition
The museum's permanent exhibition contains material related to the nation's relationships to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It also contains exhibits related to Hungarian organisations such as the fascist Arrow Cross Party and the communist ÁVH (similar to the Soviet KGB). Part of the exhibition takes visitors to the basement, where examples of cells used by the ÁVH to torture prisoners can be seen.
Controversy
Some historians, journalists, and political scientists such as Magdalena Marsovszky or Ilse Huber have argued that the museum excessively portrays Hungary as the victim of foreign occupiers and does not sufficiently recognise the contribution that Hungarians themselves made to the regimes in question.[4][5]
References
- ^ "Czech Prime minister Petr Nečas: The years of totalitarianism were years of struggle for liberty". Platform of European Memory and Conscience. 14 October 2011. Archived from the original on 30 March 2012. Retrieved 20 October 2016.
- ^ Kisantal Tamás, Krommer Balázs (2005). "Discussion with Hayden White" (PDF) (in Hungarian). Retrieved 10 November 2016.
- ^ "A Terror Háza honlapja". Archived from the original on 3 July 2008. Retrieved 9 November 2016.
- ^ Huber, Ilse. "Das Haus des Terrors in Budapest: Umstrittenes Museum über Ungarns Zeitgeschichte" (in German). Retrieved 18 February 2011.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link) - ^ Marszovszky, Magdalena (2011). ""Die Märtyrer sind die Magyaren". Der Holocaust in Ungarn aus Sicht des Hauses des Terrors in Budapest und die Ethnisierung der Erinnerung in Ungarn" ["The Martyrs are the Magyars". The Holocaust in Hungary from the Perspective of the House of Terror in Budapest and the Ethnification of Memory in Hungary]. In Globisch, Claudia; Pufelska, Agnieszka; Weiß, Volker (eds.). Die Dynamik der europäischen Rechten. Geschichte, Kontinuitäten und Wandel [The Dynamics of the European Right. History, Continuity and Change] (in German). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. pp. 55–74. ISBN 978-3-531-17191-3.