Last month, I was in Budapest, Hungary. I went to House of Terror, a museum converted from the Police Prison. It commemorates victims of Nazi violence and Communist oppression in the 20th century.
Faces of those victims locked up in the basement of this building or deported to Siberia...
The exhibits appear to be rather usual at first sight. Except, visitors are given handouts which describe (in Magyar and English!) lives of Hungarians under these tyrannical regimes. Under what conditions political prisoners were forced to work in camps; how some were locked up in underground prisons. Multiple screen videos show recorded interviews of survivors and contemporaries to convey what it was like. To me the contrast between their battered faces and smooth, rather cheerful faces of Hungarian youth visiting this place was the most startling thing. Hungary has finally moved on since the collapse of the Habsburg Empire.
What was most poignant and funny in a way was a video in a small booth showing how people swapped their Nazi uniform to the Communist one at the end of WW2....
- http://www.terrorhaza.hu/en/index_2.html
(The English page doesn't seem to be working...)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Terror
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