Recski National Memorial Park

The labour camp was in use near the Csákány rock stone cave above the settlement between October 1950 and autumn 1953 by the State Defence Authority (ÁVH) established secretly by following the Russian model of gulags. The 1500 prisoners held for political reasons came from different layers of society ranging from politicians to poets, former estate owners, manual workers and intellectual workers. The prisoners deported here without any jurisdiction were kept under inhumane circumstances and made to work. Most of them died due to starvation, accident or simply by the guards. No one knows exactly where the dead were buried. The camp was hermetically excluded from the world outside. Only two successful attempts to escape were made. After the regime change in 1991 a memorial was inaugurated here to commemorate the prisoners who died or suffered there. The National Memorial Park was opened in 1996 where a tower and barracks were constructed to illustrate the circumstances at that time !!!

Wonderful environment, incredibly beautiful landscape. But I can almost see how they lived in the prison camp, how they existed in the barracks, in the tightly packed beds, on straw bags. How many lives were ruined there, how much pain and suffering was the lot of the prisoners here, who were on a poor diet but did serious physical work in this penal camp. 14 hours a day in the quarry, there was no washing, only lice, diseases and deprivation. How was it possible to survive this? Only one barracks was rebuilt, but the places of the other barracks were marked with a sign. We can read about this place, this hell on earth, in Faludy's famous novel. ( György Faludy: On the Porch of Hell ) Let us remember the past so that this horror never repeats itself! It is worth visiting in April, because the former command room, which is now a museum, can only be viewed then.

We visited the place again after about 20 years. Reading the memoirs, thinking about the living conditions of the people suffering here... depressing. The "guardians" must have been extremely soulless people(?). It would be worth making everyone aware that this is also part of our modern history. Everyone should see it once!

Having read a lot about the history of this era, the memorial park I saw here also made me think. It should definitely be one of the most visited memorial parks in the country, and not because of its spectacular nature, but so that no one …

Unfortunately, not much has changed in the past twenty years. Only the marble plaques marking the barracks are new, and the six-meter-long sidewalk in front of the cash register. There are no toilets, more precisely only in the building …