English name for
Terror Haza, the former headquarters of the
fascist Hungarian Arrowcross Party and, after 1945, the
Hungarian secret police services. At 60 Andrassy Boulevard in
Budapest, the building has been reconvertered into a museum to commemorate the victims of fascism and Communism in
Hungary - many of whom who were
tortured to death in the cellars, as well as to show off the more benign, kitchy elements of life in a
Soviet satellite.
The museum makes good use of a number of new media technologies - without going into overkill - to give the impression what life was like under both regimes for the average Hungarian - an era of informers, propaganda and fear of being transported to the Siberian Gulag or a concentration camp. Favourite parts include a Soviet tank surrounded by the prison mug shots of various victims, the preserved offices of Gabor Peter - the director of Hungary's secret police, a maze built out of plastic blocks that look like tubs of butter which shows how the peasantry suffered, and a montage of branded Hungarian goods and magazines from the less oppressive sixties and seventies.
www.terrorhaza.hu