Submitted by Shane Dorsey on the 2019 winter session study abroad program in Budapest, Hungary sponsored by the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration…
On our first Saturday in Budapest, I and the other thirteen students from our program toured the famed Terror Museum on the Buda side of the Danube. The memorial paints a (adequately-named) terrifying depiction of what life was like for Hungarians during the twentieth century, as they endured both Nazi and Soviet regimes.
The experience was fascinating and humbling; intriguing yet controversial. Although my history education thus far has unfortunately omitted essentially everything about Central and Eastern Europe, I was knew enough before touring the Museum that the Hungarians were not innocent in their victimhood during World War II and the forty years that followed. The museum gave us incredible insight into the suffering of the everyday citizen during the years in which they were occupied, but it neglects to acknowledge the Hungarian government’s own history of yielding to the regimes that have oppressed them.
Interestingly, we discovered that the Museum, which opened in the early 2000’s, was established under current Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government – which has recently come under fire for its authoritarian tendencies. The idea of Hungary being a democratic nation seems to be slipping away, and I saw our visit to the Terror Museum as a reflection of that. While the museum provides an incredibly emotional experience, any surface amount of research into its history reveals how distorted the telling of the story of the mid-twentieth century Hungary has become.
The experience, in summary, reminded me of the famous Orwellian quote: “those that control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.” While I did not see the museum as a blatant form of factually-twisted propaganda, it was difficult to walk the halls of the historical building without feeling like those in charge had construed the story to build a narrative of innocent victimhood in describing their past. If they had done no wrong in the past, how could anyone believe they would commit wrongs in the years to come?
