It was a museum that affected me deeply when I went. Both with the bad memories it lived through and with its interior, it takes you back to the past and has a way of engraving what happened in your memory. I'll try to pass on to you what I learned about the House of Terror Museum.
Before going in, you stand under the cut-out letters of the word terror, lit up at roof level. This renovated building in Budapest was the former headquarters of the Nazi regime and then, after World War II, under the control of the Soviet Union's Communist regime. Both used the basement as prison cells. After the Communist period, great efforts were made to turn the building into a museum.
A desk
Although turning it into a museum took many years, everything inside was studied down to the finest detail and it reached its present state.
INTERROGATION ROOMS
Interrogation rooms
What there is inside! Videos of people who have lived since that era telling their stories. Turning what was done into videos while the people are still alive has been a very important piece of work. It's quite hard to understand what they're saying, but thinking of people like us, they've put English subtitles . What was told in Hungarian, together with the darkness and the music, created an unforgettable experience and an indescribable effect on us.
Detention cell
When you first go in, a big tank greets you in the lobby. This tank is a tank from World War II. It's been modernised a bit and has become a nice object for visitors. Then I went up to the second floor. Live videos that take you back in time are playing; sometimes, even if it's not your own nation, you can't help feeling sad for the people slaughtered in the events. There are also all kinds of uniforms. On the first floor there are many exhibits and rooms known as torture rooms. Who knows what torture and executions were carried out in these rooms?!
Torture rooms
When you go down to the lowest floor, everything is displayed in its concrete reality. You experience different prison cells. Among these are the wet cell, where a prisoner's knees were in cold water, and the detention cell with a lightless ceiling one metre high and only half a metre of floor space.There are a great many places to visit in Budapest. You can find our Budapest Places to Visit post, where we tell you in detail about the places we managed to visit, here.
** You can tour the museum nicely in 1-2 hours.
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