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Andrassy Boulevard is one of Budapest’s most beautiful thoroughfares. Lined by stately apartment buildings and fashionable storefronts, it connects downtown Budapest and the Danube with “Heroes Square” where students tore down the giant statue of Stalin during the 1954 Hungarian Revolution. The street is named after one of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s greatest Hungarian statesmen, Count Gyula Andrassy.

There is little to distinguish 60 Andrassy Blvd from the other neo-renaissance buildings that surround it except for a small sign that states simply “TERROR HAZA”.

Today 60 Andrassy is a museum. From 1937 until 1956 it was a house of unbelievable terror. A house of torture and murder.

Let me read directly from the visitor’s guide handed out to those who today visit what the Hungarians describe as, “ The statue of terror, a monument to the victims.

“The House of Terror” is a museum now, but it was witness to two shameful and tragic periods in Hungary’s 20th century history. It was truly a house of terror.

In 1944, during the gruesome domination of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party, this building, known as the “House of Loyalty” was the party headquarters of the Hungarian Nazis.

Then between 1945 and 1956, the notorious communist terror organization, the AVO and its successor, the AVH, took up residence here. 60 Andrassy Boulevard had become the house of terror and dread.

This museum commemorates the victims of terror, but it is also a memento, reminding us of the dreadful acts of terrorist dictatorships.

As the guide explained to us as we explored the museum, The Arrow Cross Party was a group of Hungarians that established a governing body to collaborate with the Nazis. “France had Vichy, we had the Arrow Cross,” was the way he described it. “But the Arrow Cross was much more vicious, cruel and murderous than the Vichy Government of France. Any Jews still left in Hungary were killed or shipped off to concentration camps.”

He reminded us of the “Shoe Museum” we had seen only yesterday.

“In 1944 near the end of the war,” he explained, “many of us in Hungary wanted to end it. We wanted to surrender and try and reconstruct our lives. In response the Arrow Cross Party arrested thousands of us without warrants or charges. Many were taken to the basement of this building here at 60 Andrassy, tortured and killed.”

He pointed to a sewer grill in the middle of the basement floor. “That was for the blood,” he said.

According to our guide, even though the Nazis were near defeat, the Arrow Cross Party and their henchmen believed that Hitler would soon unleash a secret weapon, which would win the war for him, so thousands of teenaged boys were rounded up and sent to the Eastern Front to be massacred by the Russians.

In 1945, after the defeat of Hitler, one of the first things the Soviet occupiers did was take over 60 Andrassy Boulevard, establishing first the State Security Office (AVO) then the State Security Authority (AVH).

If possible the atrocities carried out at 60 Andrassy were even worse than under the Arrow Cross. “The officers serving at 60 Andrassy were masters of life and death, mostly death,” said our guide.

Here is how the official guidebook of “Terror Haza” describes those terrible days under the Soviets.

“During the most unimaginable and horrific interrogations lasting for weeks, many of the victims died. Those who survived the body-crushing and soul-debasing pain were ready to sign any document.

A whole host of informers, a shadow army, watched people on factory floors, in editorial rooms, in offices, at universities, in churches and theatres, noting down their every move. These informers received full backing as well as ideological and practical guidance from the Soviet occupiers. No one could feel safe from them. It was with their support that the Communists came to power and built up and preserved their hegemony-a tyrannical regime that seized, mistreated or crippled one person from every third family In Hungary.

The visitors’ guide concludes with these words:

“Until now the building blended in with the other houses along the boulevard. Now transformed into a museum, it not only pays tribute to the memory of the victims by housing the exhibition, but the exterior also conjures up its spirit. With its transformation, the “House of Terror” is no longer simply a building. 60 Andrassy Boulevard has become a sculpture in the shape of a building that is a monument to the victims.

The terror’s former house demonstrates today that sacrifices made in the name of freedom are never futile. From the fight against the two murderous regimes, the powers of freedom and independence have emerged victorious.

Again those words—freedom and independence. Few people in the world today have sacrificed more to achieve it than the Hungarians.

I am not suggesting for one moment that Quebecers have suffered anything close to the terror inflicted upon Hungary by the Nazis or the Communists, in fact quite the opposite but what the Hungarian experienced clearly demonstrates is that there are many people in the world willing to risk everything, including their lives in order to achieve freedom and independence.

In an effort to be “masters in their own house” more than 300,000 Hungarians were exiled, imprisoned, tortured or killed.

Their fight for freedom and independence began on October 23, 1956 when more than 200,000 took to the streets of Budapest, tearing down red star signs, destroying Stalin’s statue and taking over the state broadcast station. They appealed to the world for help but all that arrived were 30,000 Russian tanks.

More than 200,000 of the revolutionaries fled into Austria until their escape route was cut off. Thousands were killed. The U.S. called it a “monstrous crime” but along with the rest of the West did nothing.

Hungarians had to wait another 32 years under the Communist yoke before finally on the 24th of March 1990 free elections were held and Hungary at last was free and independent.