This past Sunday, and the Sunday before, I went to the House of Terror and Holocaust Memorial museums, respectively. The House of Terror is stronger in my mind, so I'll start with that one.
Hungary has a unique opportunity, and therefore responsibility, to tell the story of genocide and Stalinism. It's in the same way Washington DC has a unique responsibility in memorializing the slave trade, or Georgia has in the horrors of Andersonville. The markers are there; they don't have to be photocopied or videotaped or digitized. It is in the failure to recognize this that the House of Terror fails at its basic task: to foster education about and analysis of decades of repression and institutionalized murder.
This failure begins even before you go into the museum. I took this photo from right across the street, on the other side of Andrassy.
Classy, right? You can't see it from the picture, but the place looks like it was painted yesterday, grey, of course, for that authentic Soviet feel. And just in case you were wondering if this is a Serious Place where Bad Things happened, there's the 'TERROR' stencil on the roof, designed so that the word appears on the building and/or the sidewalk when the sun is overhead. In addition to all this, there are miniature pictures, presumably of victims, lining the outside of the building on the side. It's like the designers are trying to capitalize on the haunted house feel of the place, turning it into a sideshow at an amusement park instead of letting the place speak for itself. It doesn't need to 'feel' authentic and scary, it IS authentic and horrifying. Dressing it up makes you feel like you're walking past an advertisement for a new horror movie. Maybe it makes you shudder a bit, but you can always remind yourself it's just a movie and move on with your life.The inside is just as bad. While checking your coat, the first item you encounter is a short video played on a loop. An old man is talking about casualties, and how few survived, and forgiveness. Don't get me wrong, it's an extremely moving video. Watching him try to come to grips with what unanswerable question, the expression on his face is beyond my power to describe. I suspect it will stay with me for a very long time. But there's no attempt to explain even which period of time he's talking about, the Holocaust or the Soviet occupation. To the museum designers, it seems that death is death and one tragedy is as depressing and bloody as another. The next thing you see after the lobby is a giant replica of a Soviet tank resting on a black marble platform. Around this tank, walls stretching to the roof are covered with photos of victims. Which victims, or rather, whose, is again unspecified. One victim is as poignant as another. It should also be noted that next to the fake Soviet tank sit the cafe and gift shop/bookstore, because what's a horror movie without popcorn?
Any victim of oppression will tell you that silence speaks louder than screams, but the museum refuses to allow its visitors this simple, powerful tool. Every room is covered in TV screens looping through contextless, cathartic and/or shocking videos. The first room contained no less than 8 TV screens, four for each tragedy, a projection on the wall, and background music that would not be out of place before a breaking newscast. The path through the museum is vaguely chronological, though it's difficult to tell exactly what's going on in each room and some rooms present themes common to both eras. Few of the rooms focuses on a theme or time related to the original purpose of the room. The stories of what happened in those rooms are stories only the building itself can tell. Instead, they're silenced in favor of garish projections, bizarre interpretive art, and thumping music. One of the rooms about the Soviet occupation was transformed into a maze with wax (or possibly plastic) brick walls, and I still have no idea why. Those rooms that are preserved as monuments to their original purposes, like the office of the head of the Soviet Police, are cordoned off like the bedrooms at Versailles. It almost felt like I was supposed to be admiring the furniture instead of trying to understand what monstrosities happened at that old wooden desk. The only thing I could get close to was the flat screen TV on the wall. Go figure.
In all fairness, parts of the museum keep their hold on reality and, thus, their power. One room contains eight original uniforms bearing swastikas and arrow-crosses (the symbol of the Hungarian fascists). Being able to see and touch those uniforms is a gut-wrenching experience. They just hang there, staring mercilessly at the visitor and refusing to be unreal. By contrast, the room containing a rotating column with a Soviet uniform on one side and a Nazi uniform on the other inspires next to nothing, except maybe dizziness. The best-done part of the museum is also the least-done: the reconstructed prison in the basement. After an annoyingly 'Tower of Terror'-like elevator ride (it's scary because it moves veeeerrryyy slooooowwwwllyy), you emerge in the bare, freezing, cement hell where so many prisoners spent their last days. It's like being at the end of the world. There is nothing in those cells but hopelessness, and maybe a dilapidated wooden box meant to serve as a bed. One of them could not have been more than 2 feet square and 6 feet tall. Another was several yards deep, maybe 3 feet tall, and black as hell. In each cell, I had to force myself to step past the bars; part of me was scared that someone would come and close the door and I'd be trapped. The closest I've ever come to that feeling was going to Gettysburg when I was six, and being convinced that the battle was about to start again and my parents and I would get shot. The sheer nothingness of that basement was what made it real, and made it hurt. No television, no 'symbolic' art, just cold cement and rotting wood. That basement told its story, and told it well.
Another worthwhile part of the museum is the ever-controversial Wall of Victimizers, which contains names and photos of known Arrow-Cross and Soviet bureaucrats and thugs. I think this wall is one of the most important, and unique parts of the museum. Usually, the story of the Holocaust is told as 'People were murdered' rather than 'People murdered.' The distinction is an important one. The Holocaust and the Soviet occupation did not 'happen;' rational, thinking people created and executed the Holocaust and the Soviet occupation. Focusing solely on the victims removes responsibility from their torturers and allows people to look away from their own potential for evil. The Wall of Victimizers is an important reminder that while the victims may have been Just Like Us, so were the perpetrators.
This post is way longer than I meant it to be, so I'll leave the Holocaust Museum for another one. I hate to continue my journey into English-majordom, but bear with me for one last thought:
The House of Terror is a truth in itself. Rather than channeling this truth to visitors, the House of Terror Museum smothers it in generic, almost kitchy representations of truth. Their aim is admirable and their goal important, but the execution fails in so many ways.
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