Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Before beginning, you might consider an audio-guide (1300Ft), which will save you the
trouble of reading the English-language sheets in each room, but the latter pack far more in-
formation, and you can also take them away. Upon entering the atrium, you are confronted
with a Soviet tank sitting in a pool of water, alongside hundreds of images of ÁVO victims,
before you proceed to the second floor (you take the lift, then work downwards).
To the sound of thumping, industrial-style music, the exhibition begins with “Double Oc-
cupation”, which documents the respective Nazi and Soviet occupations, courtesy of some
powerful video footage. The next couple of rooms deal with the reign of the feared Arrow
Cross, before you get to the main subject of the museum: the Soviet “liberation” and the
emergence of Communism with its associated themes of religious persecution, resistance, in-
terrogation and intimidation. The focus here is inevitably on the activities of the Soviet-style
PRO (Political Security Department)
, which subsequently became the ÁVO and then the
ÁVH, though all three organisations were headed up by Gábor Péter, whose desk and phone
remaininsitu.Throughout,therearemovingtestimonies frommanyofthosearrestedandde-
tained on suspicion of anti-Bolshevik activities - tens of thousands of “class enemies” were
interned in forced labour camps such as the notorious Recsk camp in northeastern Hungary.
No less compelling is the Communist propaganda film of Nagy and his cohorts in court at-
tempting to defend themselves against charges of counter-revolutionary activities. The most
sobering part is the
basement
, with its reconstructed torture chamber and cells, alongside
pictures of some of those who were kept here, and further, even more harrowing testimonies.
THE ÁVO
The
Communist secret police
began as the Party's private security section during the
Horthy era, when its chief,
GáborPéter
, betrayed Trotskyites to the police to take the heat
off their Stalinist comrades. After World War II it became the 9000-strong Államvédelmi
Osztály or
ÁVO
(State Security Department), its growing power implicit in a change of
name in 1948 - to the State Security Authority or
ÁVH
(though the old acronym stuck).
Ex-Nazi torturers were easily persuaded to apply their skills on its behalf, and its network
of 41,000 informers permeated society. So hated was the ÁVO that any members caught
during the Uprising were summarily killed, and their mouths stuffed with banknotes (secret
policemen earned more than anyone else).
The Liszt Memorial Museum
Liszt Ferenc Emlékmúzeum • Andrássy út 67 • Mon-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat 9am-5pm; closed on national holidays
• 1300Ft • Concerts every Sat at 11am, 1300Ft, or 2000Ft for concert and museum • 1 413 0440,
lisztmu-
Across the road from the House of Terror stands the old Liszt Music Academy, which was
also where the composer - who was the Academy's first president - lived from 1881 until
