HELL ON EARTH IN HUNGARY UNDER COMMUNISM: THE VÁC PENITENTIARY AND PRISON IN THE 1950S
HELL ON EARTH IN HUNGARY UNDER COMMUNISM: THE VÁC PENITENTIARY AND PRISON IN THE 1950S

Summary/Abstract: In my study I describe a dark chapter in the history of Hungary in the 1950s, the tragic conditions in the Vác Penitentiary and Prison and the violence and cruelty of the authorities towards political prisoners. In 1948, communists took power in Hungary and the Stalinist dictatorship that had taken over the country put hundreds of thousands of innocent victims behind bars, interned them or deported them to forced accommodations. Vác, one of Hungary's largest prisons, it was a horror of a place until the 1956 revolution, with many dying behind bars because of torture and ill- treatment, but survivors carried the traumas of their experiences for the rest of their lives. At the end of this article, I will look at the former prisoners of Vác who are buried in the Vác prison cemetery, the events of the revolution in prison, and the re-imprisonments after the revolution was crushed, and the prisoners‟ hunger strike of 1960. The situation of political prisoners in Hungary was not different from that of political prisoners in other Eastern European countries belonging to the communist bloc (e.g. Poland, Czechoslovakia, GDR, Romania, Bulgaria).

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