Mathias Church and House of Terror
The House of Terror is a museum only a few blocks from our house that displays exhibits related to both the fascist and communist governments that ran Hungary for the majority of the 20th century. The actual building was used by both the Arrow Cross Party (fascists) and the AVH (communist secret police).
Pictures weren’t allowed in the exhibits except of the big tank in the front. The pictures on the wall are all victims of the communist regime in Hungary. In the museum there was quite a few exhibits, and although most were in Hungarian there was an info sheet in most of the rooms that detailed the information in English. There were also a lot of video interviews, which were subtitled in English. In the basement there were replicas of AVH cells used. I was worried it would be too scary for the kids, but most of the horrifying human atrocities went over their heads.
Although this museum was very informative and I could have spent another few hours watching all the videos, there was a lot more time spent discussing the communist regime than the fascist, which was glossed over. Furthermore, some of the information glossed over the Hungarian involvement in both regimes, instead making them look like victims all around. However, when we had our history lesson at our Fulbright orientation, there was a lot of discussion about Hungary’s alliance with Germany in WWII and how they held on until the bitter end with the Germans.
We have been by Mathias Church several times now, but this is the first time we have actually gotten to go in. Since we had to pay to go into the church, only my aunt and I went in, since no one else was super excited about seeing another church. Well, this was a completely different church than most of the others we have seen! Instead of having tons of statues, paintings, tapestries, or reliefs on the walls and ceiling, the whole church was painted in different patterns. It was difficult to get good pictures, but this was one of the most colorful churches I have seen. The stained glass windows were also very pretty and gave a different color pattern against the painted walls. In one of the corner alcoves was a tomb, and this was different than most tombs in the churches we have been to because it looked like it was sculptures of the man and woman laying down in their grave, which was sort of creepy.
In the church there is a circular stairway that takes you upstairs to the balcony area. From here you can see down into the church and get pretty close to the front altar. There was also a small museum of church relics and the history of Mathias Church, which had a beautiful statue of Sisi in front of stained glass windows. This church was really beautiful inside, and I am glad we got to go in.
Zoey, my aunt Lori, and I walked down around the Parliament to show my aunt the building. Zoey took a sassy picture with the hat guy. We went down into the museum by the visitor’s center of the Parliament, which was actually pretty boring so after a bit we just walked through looking at the pictures. There was an audioguide in English, but it was just too long and detailed to keep Zoey’s interest (and honestly mine too). We also went down to the 1956 Revolution exhibit (see my earlier post about this), and had a good conversation about peaceful protests, riots, and staying safe when things go bad.
Unfortunately, when we walked up there was a ‘parade’ just coming around the side of the Parliament. After watching for a few minutes, we realized this was a protest march against vaccines, and the protesters had signs, drums, airhorns, music, and were shouting and throwing rude gestures at the parliament. As this was going on there were soldiers in uniform quickly coming out from inside the Parliament building and beginning to patrol around the building. Zoey got freaked out about this and kept saying, “We have to go. We really have to go. We have to leave.” We calmly walked past the protesters and away toward the other side of the Parliament building, with Zoey gripping hard to my hand the whole time. Nothing bad happened, but it really brought to life how things can escalate quickly. I’ll admit, I was a little apprehensive as I have never been in the middle of a protest before, but we just kept calm and made sure to walk away.
