Hungary 1956. Faces and objects

An exhibit dedicated to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the reactions it elicited at the time in communist Poland is now open in Warsaw.

Entrance is free.

The exhibit "Hungary 1956. Faces and objects" is dedicated to Polish-Hungarian relations in the context of the Hungarian independence uprising in 1956, which was brutally crushed by Soviet armies. Poland was the only satellite state of the USSR not to immediately condemn the so-called counter-revolution and reports from Hungary by Polish journalists, including Hanna Adamiecka, Marian Bielicki, and Krzysztof Wolicki, regularly appeared in the press and radio.

The exhibit combines a narration of the individuals fates of revolution participants and sample accounts of Poles assisting Hungarians at the time. Items on display will include original photographs, letters, demonstrator armbands and event fragments of bullets, as well as contemporary portraits of witnesses by photographer Örs Csete, presenting, among others, Polish students who joined the Budapest Revolutionary National Guard. The entirety will be closed by a part dedicated to the memory of 1956 in Poland and Hungary; a postscript is the poem by Zbigniew Herbert, "Węgrom".

The exhibit may be viewed at the History Meeting House at ul. Karowa 20 from 12 October to 12 November.

Its organisers are the History Meeting House, the Hungarian Institute of Culture in Warsaw and ENRS.


The opening of the exhibition took place on 12 October. It was attended by the Ambassador of Hungary, Orsolya Zsuzsanna Kovács, and Ákos Engelmayer, journalist, historian and 1956 revolution participant. The official part of the opening was followed by a discussion with historians Reka Kiss, Klaus Ziemmer and Łukasz Kamiński, moderated by János Tischler and Rafał Rogulski.

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