This museum housed in the former headquarters of the AVH (Államvédelmi Hatóság _ or State Protection Authority, the secret police of Hungary from 1945-1956. It was conceived as an external appendage of the Soviet Union's secret police forces and gained an indigenous reputation for brutality during a series of purges beginning in 1948, intensifying in 1949 and ending in 1953. The museum is dedicated to remembering the terrible things done first by the Nazis and then later by the Soviet-backed Communist Party.When the Communists moved into Budapest, their secret police took over the Nazi secret police headquarters. It was here that Hungarians suspected of being an enemy of the state were given sham trials, tortured, and routinely executed. The building is marked off from the neighboring townhouses by a giant steel blade projecting from the roof, which has the word ‘TERROR’ cut out of it in large stencil letters, along with the arrow-cross of the Hungarian fascists and a communist star.