Ideological Marginalisation in the Hungarian Auschwitz Exhibition

The Hungarian exhibition at Auschwitz, which opened in 1965, reflected the official political narrative of the Kádár regime. Instead of the tragedy of the Jews, it emphasized universal anti-fascist resistance and the heroism of communist martyrs, creating the false impression that the mass murders during World War II were based primarily on class rather than ethnicity. A significant portion of the approximately 120 panels denounced the regime of Miklós Horthy and the White Terror, while the section on the mass deportation and extermination of the Jewish people was relegated to the end of the exhibition and disproportionately reduced in size.