I admit that I have been rather cheap when it came to visiting museums in Budapest. I've put it off often saying that I'm here for the whole year and museums here were rather expensive for me.... but funny how I could easily fork out 10 Euros to see the Art museum in Vienna and not blink an eye about it... hmmm... think I overestimate forints too much... or maybe it's just that I base it on how much I earn...

Anyhow, if it weren't for my roommate, I don't think that I would have come here on my own so soon at all. The cost of getting it was 1500 Ft (approx 6 Euros)... but I still found it expensive... But anyhow, the museum is located in the same building that served as the headquarters of the Pro Nazi arrow cross party from 1944-1945 before being taken over by the AVH secret police during the communist regime. The museum focuses mainly on the atrocities committed during the Hungarian fascist and stalinist regimes... but most of the focus ( I thought) was on the stalinist regime from after WWII to the 1956 revolution. There was alot of emphasis on the purges of the Kulaks (sound familar history students?) Kulaks refer to the rich peasants who usually owned lots of land... so under the stalinist regime these people were hunted and persecuted for whatever reason thought of. The interesting bit of the museum is that we also got to see the reconstructed holding cells in which prisoners were kept in before, and we also learnt of the different torture methods used then....

I guess for some it would have been very disturbing... but I guess for me, having been studied the Japanese occupation since I was young and having read of their numerous atrocities committed in Asia and seen many Tv shows on the Japanese occupation in Singapore/Asia.... I guess I was a little immune to the sights of the instruments that were used in those days.... might I say that I think the Japs were probably a little more creative with their torture methods... (Anyone remember the one where they would take a sword and cut through the skin of your back and nothing else.....)

An interesting feature of the musem though is at the very last bit when we walked through an entire gallery of the perpetrators who took part in these atrocities, many of whom are hungarians themselves and are still very much alive today still... so it was an ironic touch... imagine being a local, coming here and seeing your grandmother's face on the wall.... I wonder if they would feel shame, or would they argue that it was a survival of the fittest then.... coz it if was your life or his... would you be willing to lie to save yours.... only a few would be so noble as to tell the truth....

Well... so to me it was an intersting museum... but not totally worth my money... a little overrated with the constant haunting music in the background... but hell... at least I've been here, so I get to say my piece about it...