House of Terror

Budapest, Hungary

House of Terror museum contains exhibitions related to the fascist and communist dictatorial regimes in 20th-century Hungary and is also a memorial to the victims of these regimes, including those detained, interrogated, tortured or killed in the building. The museum opened in 2002.

With regard to communism and fascism, the exhibition contains material on the nation's relationships to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It also contains exhibits related to Hungarian organisations such as the fascist Arrow Cross Party and the communist ÁVH (which was similar to the Soviet Union KGB secret police). Part of the exhibition takes visitors to the basement, where they can see examples of the cells that the ÁVH used to break the will of their prisoners.

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Founded: 2002
Category: Museums in Hungary

Rating

4.1/5 (based on Google user reviews)

User Reviews

Barry Allen (4 months ago)
A good first stop to a trip to Budapest as it helps you understand what Hungary went through and how it relates to some of the other common tourist attractions. The audio guide is a must for English speakers, without it you only have paper pamphlets in certain rooms. I took off a star because of the whole set up. The music was way too intense in one of the first rooms while I was trying to watch the video. The interviews on the wall are also a bit confusing, one would play and then it switches to another screen and then back.
Krzysztof Sucharski (5 months ago)
The climate in this place is just amazing. So good idea to create this that much scary. The things presented are just facts. There's a lot of videos. Don't take the audio guide as this does not help you to focus on what you see or watch. On the other hand it works just terrible. Sometimes switches automatically (mostly in the rooms with videos) where in quiet rooms without and texts doesn't work and you need to turn on manually. I have found it rather disturbing after just 5 minutes. The organization is half good. That means you start 2nd floor and follow the arrows until 1st floor. Then the access to the basement is something you need to figure out on your own also with direction.
Henry Zarza (5 months ago)
The Museum was good, I felt the audio guide is very necessary despite there are some papers with explanations but are very limited, so for my experience it's more enjoyable and easy to understand if you have an audio guide. The price is 2,000 florins
Neep Heid (6 months ago)
Its difficult to describe a visit to this museum as enjoyable given its focus. But, if you want to learn about the recent history of Hungary, this is a good place to start. We took the audio guide as we were unsure how much would be in English. Turned out that there are A4 sized cards on the wall in each exhibit/room in English you can take out and read. We still enjoyed having the audio guide. My teenager particularly found this museum fascinating. She listened to every bit of the audio guide and read absolutely every piece of information in here she could find. We spent several hours here having a break for lunch. Even if you haven't much time, a walk round over an hour or so will give you a good taste of what is in this museum & if you are an English speaker, the A4 info cards will be sufficient for you to grasp each exhibit. Some of the old videos displayed recounting this time period are harrowing & a sobering reminder of such recent history.
Camden Kross (8 months ago)
Me and my brother (USA, 18 and 19) spent 2.5 hours here. We did not get the audio guide. Like other reviews - the staff is at the very least NOT friendly. It cost us $23.49 USD for 2 of us - full price tickets (they do not have student discounts for students with citizenship outside the EU area). Almost everything is written in Hungarian, so consider the audio guide IF 1. you have more time or 2. You really like learning /history. There was enough details for us from the many many videos with English subtitles and the one pager descriptions in about half of the rooms. Overall we learned about a side of history barely taught in American classrooms and so I find this to be a MUST VISIT, even with all the negatives. We came in at 10:10 and had to wait 10 minutes in a line to buy tickets. When we exited around 12:45 there was a pretty long line stretching outside the building (probably 20-30 minute wait).
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