To the Memory of the Victims of the Hungarian Holocaust

The permanent exhibition recounts the history of the Hungarian Holocaust. Its purpose is to illustrate the suffering, persecution, and murder of Hungarian citizens who were condemned to physical annihilation on the basis of racial ideology, that is, the Jews or those who qualified as Jews by Hungarian law, and the Roma. The central theme of the exhibition is the relationship between the state and its citizens. From 1938 the Hungarian state gradually deprived a specific group of its citizens of everything that makes a human being a human being: rights, possessions, freedom, human dignity, and life. This process accelerated fatally in 1944, following the German occupation. In accordance with this concept, the exhibition shows the events not in chronological order, but as units of every single phase of persecution, such as deprivation of rights, plundering, deprivation of liberty, human dignity, and life. This structure is framed by the opening and closing rooms of the exhibition, which are located next to one another. The former provides a brief overview of the lives of Hungarian Jews and Roma before the war, while the latter addresses the issues of liberation and accountability, as well as the responses to persecution.

A central element of the thematic blocs is a series of family and personal stories, which are displayed on the wall encircling the entire exhibition. As we reach the last room, the lines on the wall representing lives have run out, and the personal objects presented in the opening room have disappeared. We can still hear the wedding music filtering in from the first room, which evokes the period before the destruction. From here, the path leads into the space of remembrance and mourning: the synagogue.

Venue of the exhibition
The permanent exhibition is situated on 1,500 square meters at the souterrain of the Memorial Center and in the Synagogue.
The exhibition was organized by the Hungarian National Museum.

Historians, museologists:
Katalin Jalsovszky – Historian and museologist
László Karsai– Historian
Gábor Kádár – Historian
Péter Szuhay– Roma researcher
Zsuzsanna Toronyi – Museologist
János Varga – Visual research expert
Zoltán Vági – Historian

Exhibition arrangement organized and managed by:
Judit Molnár– Historian Director
of the Pava Street Permanent Exhibition Program Office of the Hungarian National Museum

Arrangement of the exhibition supervised by:
László Harsányi – Ministerial Commissioner, Chair of the National Cultural Program
Kovács Tibor – Director General of the Hungarian National Museum
Ferenc Szikossy – Deputy Director General of the Hungarian National Museum

Expert Reviewers:
István Deák – Historian
Mónika Kovács – Social psychologist

Mária Ormos– Historian
Ilona Radnóti – Chief museologists
Sándor Radnóti – Esthete
Krisztián Ungváry – Historian

Construction:
Trifolium Hungary Kft.

Design by:
Sarolta Bihary
Mariann Derencsér
Csaba Orbán
Zsolt Vasáros

Grafics:
Judit Gelencsér

Movies:
Polaris Filmgyártó és Forgalmazó Kft.
Csaba Antók

IT:
2KAL Informatikai és Szolgáltató Bt.