From Deprivation of Rights to Genocide [antikvár]

FOREWORD The topic of the permanent exhihition is the Hungarian Holocaust. Its aim is to tell and show the ii': suffering, persecution and murder of those Hungarian citizens who were condemned to physical annihilation on the basis of racist ideology, that is, the Jews or those who qualified as Jews fay Hungarian law. and the Roma. The underlying theme of the exhibition is the relationship between the state and the citizen. From 1938 the Hungarian state gradually deprived a certain group of its citizens of everything that makes a human being a human being: rights, property, freedom, human dignity and, finally, life. This process tragically accelerated In 1944, following the German occupation. Accordingly, the exhibition shows the events not in chronological order, but as units of every single phase of persecution (deprived of rights, property, freedom, human dignity, life). This division is framed by the opening and closing rooms of the exhibition, which are located next to one another. The former briefly introduces Hungarian Jewry and Roma, while the latter deals with questions of liberation, calling to account and responses to persecution. One of the central elements of each theme is the sequence of actual family and individual stories, which are placed on the walls along the exhibition. By the time we have arrived at the closing room, the lines symbolising lives have run out, and the personal objects presented in the opening room have disappeared. We still hear the wedding music coming from the first room, reminding us of the era before the destruction. From this point the way leads to a space of remembrance and mourning: the synagogue. The memory of the destroyed communities is preserved in the pictures of demolished synagogues and houses of prayer, that of the murdered people in the portraits seen on the glass benches. The space dedicated to the rescuers is also located here, which aims to show through stories of foreign diplomats and Hungarians who took risks to save their compatriots that in one of the darkest moments of our history, hundreds hurried to help the persecuted. The exhibition ends in te meditation area, which is surrounded by the glass walls on the mezzanine of the synagogue. In each thematic unit, films, photos and original documents can be seen on the touch screen computers, which help the visitor gain a deeper insight into the given topic. On the mezzanine, a computer database is situated where the complete material of the exhibition can be researched. y ¦ ,1 i t ft I a