The Hungarian Gulag Exhibition in Kápolnásnyék Describes the World of Forced Labour Camps

Feol.hu - 12.05.2022.

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  • 2022. May 16.
Photo: NEB

Besides the exhibition, organized by the Committee of National Remembrance and the The People’s College of Arts in the Carpathian Basin a historical round table talk and the Faludy György Poem Theatre awaited visitors on Wednesday morning in the Halász Gedeon Event Centre. We set up this exhibition two years ago, for the 70th anniversary of the organization of the forced labour camps and family forced labour camps in Recsk. Its purpose is to make young people get to know these expressions above, as well as the horrors that were commited in the 1950s in Hungary due to political reasons. But the panels also try to address those senior generations, too, who did not even had the chance to read anything in this issue when they attended school, Bank Barbara, a member of the Committee of National Remembrance said.

In the panel discussion right after the exhibition opening it was mentioned that a survey enquired young people what they thought what the word ’Gulag’ meant. In most of the cases the answers were only guesses and most of them thought that it was the name of a rock band. Domokos Szokolay a research fellow of the Office of the Committee and Barbara Bank talked about the origin of the word ’Gulag’ to the student audience as well as the evolution of the system and how it worked. They outlined that even today we have no exact numbers how many Hungarians were taken to the Soviet Union into war prisoner and internment camps. The main reason for this is that the prisoners were only registered upon their arrival, until that they only had a record number. If someone died, they were simply pushed out of the carriege without a note. They also talked about the fear the people lived in in the 1950s, since anyone could be arrested any time and could be imprisoned without a sentence for years. They told that after 1950 all traced of the Interned were made vanish, even the closest family and relatives did not know about them anything, not even if they were alive. The also talked about the Hungarian Gulag that is the forced labour camp in Recsk as well as the family forced labour camps.

In the latter places the internees lived in large sheep stables where hundreds of people were quartered. Working was mandatory from the age 6. They were supplied with no clothes, shoes and they hardly were given any food. They also drew up the story of a concrete family, which described very shockingly what happened to those who were declared to be the system’s enemy. Having been released after many years did not mean freedom for the former internees, since their whole life was affected by their past. They could never live there and as they had lived before their arrest. The exhibition can be visited in the opening hours of the event centre.

Article: A kényszermunkatáborok világát is bemutatja Kápolnásnyéken a Magyar Gulag kiállítás - feol.hu (2022.05.12.)


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Photo: NEB
Photo: NEB
Photo: NEB
Photo: NEB

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