Are we betraying history?

Last year, around this time, I visited the Terror Háza museum in Budapest, which translates to the "House of Terror" in English. Situated right in the centre of the city, to the unseeing eye, it looks just like a typical European building. But once you set foot inside, it resembles not one of those cheesy and plastic haunted houses in malls, but one of Dante's circles of hell. 

Up until the start of the 21st century, much of Eastern Europe was painted red and held behind an iron curtain, and Hungary was no stranger to totalitarianism. As communism and fascism gripped the country, secrets ravaged the streets. Loud, laughing voices reduced into whispers because you never knew who could be listening. You never knew if your one slip of the tongue would end up being etched onto your gravestone. You never knew who to trust. 

The premises of Terror Háza used to house the headquarters of the Államvédelmi Hatóság (ÁVH), i.e., the secret police of the People's Republic of Hungary. If someone spotted a Black Volga car on the streets of Budapest, they knew their life was about to change forever— the ÁVH had them under surveillance. 

The Black Volga on Display in Terror Háza.
Picture courtesy: www.terrorhaza.hu

This trip to Budapest was part of a school exchange program, so I spent a week in the city living with a host family. After the visit to the museum, I asked the family how they treat this part of their history. The father's face quite instantly turned gray, and he spoke a single sentence with furrowed eyebrows — "Those were dark times." That was my cue to switch topics. 

It baffles me how we criticize the present while endlessly romanticizing the past as if living in the plague-infested medieval ages was some kind of "dark academia" dream. The same illusion shapes our view of our own histories through a process called Rosy Retrospection. Our brains selectively highlight the good moments while glossing over the bad because the memories were essentially oversimplified, zipped files when stored. As a result, that entire era feels like nothing but sunshine and daisies. 

While this seems like a nice trip down memory lane, this becomes dangerous when cataloging and disseminating histories of entire cultures and countries. One might feel compelled to pretend as if hard times never existed and instead create memes about how living expenses were so low back in the good old days. But by doing so, we strip away the stories of hundreds of commoners who struggled to survive in the very 'good old days' we idealize. Instead of capturing their voices, history books are often bloated with redundant lists of military equipment and endless pages detailing the strategies of distant leaders, reducing history to what feels like a grand strategy game rather than a tapestry of human experiences.

This is where historical fiction can come in to glue together these gaps and simultaneously expose the true plight of the soul in forgotten times. 

My wool-gathering about the trip to Budapest started after I finished reading "I Must Betray You" by Ruta Sepetys today. Ruta Sepetys is a Lithuanian-American author who describes herself as a "seeker of lost stories." Her books are works of fiction, but they have a way of showcasing the grassroots level atrocities, both heard and unheard of, and making one truly feel the weight of history. Ultimately, the stories gut you. 

"I Must Betray You" is set in communist 1989 Romania, amid the tyrannical dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu. The story is centered around a boy, Cristian, who has suddenly found himself caught in a dangerous web of espionage and betrayal. When he should have been in school stressing for exams, he was forced to become an informer to the Securitate, the secret police of Romania, and provide intel about a US diplomat in Bucharest.

 

Picture Courtesy: Goodreads

What struck me the most about this book is how it portrayed the living conditions of Cristian's family. The juxtaposition of the US Diplomat's house with the gray apartment blocs Cristian lives in, is impactful. Dan, the Diplomat's son, lives in a room that is the size of the entire apartment where Cristian's family of 5 is stuffed in. Dan is oblivious to the struggles of the Romanians, even though he is quite literally in the epicentre of it all. Instead, he sees his time in Romania as a good emotional essay for college admissions. This has become all too real—the exploitation and distortion of history have become so ingrained in today’s world that we struggle to grasp the true, far-reaching consequences of past events.

Cristian is completely captivated by the Western lifestyle, and one of his fixations on the US stems from the fact that bananas, a luxury item in Romania and his favorite fruit, are readily available there. These glimpses of life outside Romania and the ideals of his revolutionary Bunu (Grandfather) gradually inspire him to take a stand and protest against the macabre system. 

Each chapter ends with a short and painful realization steeped in heavy emotions, bitter truths, and betrayals. Then, the subsequent chapter deals with the aftermath as Cristian tries to piece together events and slowly comes to terms with his reality. Now, spoiler alert, after all this, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but not in the glamorous way you would expect. After being punished and jailed for participating in a student protest, which ultimately contributed to the crumbling of Ceaușescu's government, Cristian goes on to live a normal life. He doesn't become a magnanimous savior of Romania, but rather a modest English teacher. He is still ridden with incomplete explanations, but all in all, he's made it. 

The way the book was structured reminded me of the process of learning history itself. You learn heartbreaking facts and figures about barbaric events. You are suddenly filled with adrenaline to bring justice and change in society. But then, you close the textbook, and suddenly, all of it seems like a fever dream. 

I felt this at Terror Háza. 

A Prison Cell in Terror Háza.
Picture courtesy: www.terrorhaza.hu

When you enter the museum, you stand face to face with propaganda posters. You see the beaming faces of politicians and policemen who have ruthlessly tortured innocent people. You see the dark hall with an infinite names of victims illuminated by a single candle. You see a military tank that still stinks of the blood from the lives it took. There's an elevator that takes you down to the basement with prison cells. If you listen closely, you can hear the faint murmur of prisoners who once screamed for their lives. The walls bear the nail scratches of prisoners, bite marks from infected rats, and burnt holes from gunshots. The conditions are horrid. You close your eyes. The scene is too heavy to bear. 

And then, you walk into the final room. 

There is jaunty music playing. There are bright lights. A sweet fragrance consumes the room, and the shelves are crowded with vibrant and colorful souvenirs. Stalin and Lenin candles, T-shirts and mugs with the ÁVH logo, magnets with stills from the prisons. 

My classmates, who just moments before had tears in their eyes, jumped around in excitement, laughing and posting about the objects on their Instagram accounts.

Maybe the "dark times" will never be understood. 

Maybe history will always be a fever dream. 

Maybe we'll continue longing for the "good old days."