Hungary's Tough History

After much discussion with the family I was staying with, I started out my day at Aquincum, located north of Budapest. I was graciously driven there by my professor -- it took over an hour and a half to get there. We, in Seattle, think that we have commute problems? The entire city of Budapest seems to be under road construction, resulting in massive back-ups and frustrations for people. Anyway, Aquincum was an ancient Roman town along the border regions with neighboring groups. These groups were far from peaceful... The town, while full of what seemed to be beautiful houses and a cool layout -- complete with lots of baths! -- also had an urgent need to protect itself. It was pretty interesting to walk the grounds, as there were very few people around. It let my imagination run a bit wild!

Given the plethora of rocks and sunny weather, there were lizards everywhere. Where I walked, they scattered. At first, it was a bit disconcerting, but then I got a bit caught up in trying to catch one, to no avail.

Next on the list: the Gallery and Spanish Exhibit. I am usually not one for museums or art galleries because the places feel too overwhelming. However, in short and concentrated bursts of time, I really do like looking at art. I took the train to Hosok Tere (Heroes Square) and checked out the works of El Greco, Velazquez, and Goya. It was interesting to see this collection, as I had seen some of the paintings before in Madrid. This collection was only the best of the best of their work (according to those who know such things). It was pretty neat to look really closely at the different paintings and imagine painting such a thing myself -- impossible!

Then it was out to the square for some photo ops... It is quite a massive space. Here are some pictures... (1) the main statue, (2) a close-up of the top of the statue, and (3) a close-up of one the statues ringing the square...













I walked down Andrassy Ut from Heroes Square to the City Center. There, I stopped and had some GREAT gelato. As it turned out, I had gelato there three times over the course of the weekend -- it was that good. However, as good as the gelato was, the waitstaff equaled it with grumpiness. Oh well. Such is the expectation of traveling in Europe -- the meaning of customer service is not even generally neutral but negative.

The sad highlight of the day, however, was the House of Terror. I knew very little about the Museum and had some time to kill. Little did I know that this would be such a troubling experience... The House of Terror is located on 60 Andrassy Ut. It was the headquarters of the Nazi and Communist regimes -- and where countless numbers of people were tortured and killed in the basement. The exhibit, while clearly trying to paint the picture that "Hungary would never had been like this if not for external influences," certainly shed light on a terribly sad history. Hungary was allied with Germany in WWI and, like Germany, faced terrible economic conditions in the inter-war period. At the start of WWII, it again allied itself with Germany in hopes of regaining the 2/3 of the country that was lost after WWI and the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Until March of 1944, the Nazis did not occupy Hungary. However, that soon came to an end when Nazi soldiers crossed the border and placed Hungarian Jews on trains to Auschwitz or sent them to the Budapest Ghetto. Almost all of the Jews living in the countryside perished in the death camps. Before the war, Hungary had the third largest Jewish population in Europe. After the war, those numbers were considerably lessened.

In August of 1944, the Communist troops began marching into Hungary. After serious and brutal fights between the Nazis and Communists (which the Nazis, obviously, lost), the Communist assumed control of Hungary for two generations. During the 1950s and 1960s, the Hungarian citizenry lived under tight control by a government willing to punish dissidents. This is the picture that many Americans were likely afraid of -- the Communist threat. I would have been afraid too -- especially after visiting the museum.

This museum really forced me to think about Hungarian history and what I think about communism and Marxism more generally. I had little knowledge about Hungarian history prior to this experience; I was struck by what a crummy situation war puts people and countries in (which I think that we all kinda' know, but it is really different to "know" it and to walk through a building where people died because of it). War can be really great for the people in control, but those at the bottom get the raw end of any stick. While the Russian/Soviet interpretation of Communism may not have been authentic or accurate Marxism, it still makes me think critically about those Marxist principles that I think are correct. The museum and the city also made me think about our (the US) policy on crimes against humanity, torture, Abu Gharib, Guantanamo, and being silent.

After this heavy thinking, I met up with my professor and talked briefly about my experience at the museum and asked him a bunch of questions about his experience of growing up in Hungary. We sat along the Danube River at a swanky cafe, taking about the pros and cons of Communist government and the effects of Hungarian history.

Tamas and I headed home after talking for almost three hours... After a fun and chatty dinner with his family, the three girls took me to a movie (in English). We saw TransAmerica -- quite good. I recommend that you see it. The most interesting thing about this theater -- which I was told is characteristic of Budapest -- is that there are collages on the walls of the various movies that have been shown and there is a bookstore, jewelry store, and candy stand in the lobby. It was a pretty random conglomeration of things and people -- quite a site, aside from the movie.