Terror in Hungary

Dr Crumble suggested we visit a museum called The House of Terror. Dr Quake didn't feel to keen, however we went anyway.

On one of the most fashionable streets of Budapest, the facility was used by the Fascists in their relatively short reign and then the NKVD when the Soviets "liberated" Hungary in 1945 and just didn't go home. Or not until 1991 at least.

At street level it is one building but at cellar level, where all the interrogations and torture happened, it extended for the whole city block.

The huge banner is three storeys high and carries life sized etched images of the faces of all the people who died there. In a separate room they had images of the faces of the people who did the torturing. The creepy thing was that for the most part you could have interchanged them, so ordinary did the torturers look.

Oh. The flag. The abortive uprising (post Melbourne Olympic Games and the infamous Hungary/USSR waterpolo match) went for 13 days only before the tanks rolled in. The symbol of revolt is the national flag with a great big hole in the middle. That is where the protesters had ripped out the Soviet emblem previously superimposed on their flag.