The Police Museum is located near Keleti station. It is free to enter, and has been open to the public since 1999. Occasional English documentation should help non-Hungarian speakers.
Founded in 1908, the museum aimed to gather as much material and photographic evidence of past crimes as possible, and had collected more than 10,000 items by 1918. These sorts of institutions were very popular in Europe at the time. Sadly, the collection was almost completely destroyed in World War II. Speculation remains that Soviet troops may have absconded with certain artefacts, as they did with criminal records and other IDs from the same building.
After the war, the museum reopened for a few years as a police school and postgraduate institute, before eventually moving to its current location on Mosonyi utca. At the time, admission was limited to those in the profession, until the decision was made to renovate the exhibition space and throw it open to the public.
The museum is now divided into two parts: police history and forensics. The range of material is enough to demand an hour of your time in each section, maybe even more. Much of the documentation is dark and not suitable for younger visitors, but there is lighter fare as well. One of the best examples is the corridor which connects the two halves, built in 2008 and featuring a Past and Present photo gallery. This comprises pairs of images, showing policemen in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, recreated by the modern-day police force, mirroring the same positions at the same locations.
The most famous demolition and the most famous serial killer
Exhibits also clear up a number of rumours about famous crimes in Hungary. One example is the Biatorbágy explosion. Legend has it that disaster fetishist Szilveszter Matuska blew up the bridge when a train was going across it, but a contemporary on-site photo puts it right: the viaduct remained intact, and the explosion occurred on solid ground before the bridge. We also know that the perpetrator remained on the scene, claiming he had been travelling on the train and had survived the attack. The whole story leaves tantalisingly unanswered questions. Was the man operating alone, or merely a pawn in a larger conspiracy? No-one knows, but you can ponder these questions while looking Matuska’s mugshots, which are on display.
Similarly exciting is the story of Béla Kiss, the first domestic Hungarian serial killer of the 20th century. Tabloid media has thoroughly publicised the case, so it still lives in the public memory. Seven women fell into his hands – not because he was a psychopath, but because he was in need of money. His victims were spinsters in their thirties and forties, and of considerable wealth. Béla Kiss made marriage proposals to the women through newspaper advertisements, and after taking them away, killed each one and hid their bodies in handmade barrels, which he then buried in his garden.
The skull of Sándor Rózsa
Sitting on display within the Police Museum are the skull tops of Hungary’s most famous outlaw, SándorRózsa, and that of his brother. The two bone pieces were donated to the museum in the late ’60s from the estate of an old doctor, who had received them as gifts from a patient. Why the skull roofs were thus separated from their owners is the story of one of the most notorious cases in criminology.
Cesare Lombroso, a professor of medicine and the father of criminal anthropology, began his own crime museum in the 1870s, where he introduced the theory that a predisposition to crime was hereditary, and physical markers could be discerned on the face or body which would indicate unlawful proclivity. Following in Lombroso’s footsteps, József Lenhossék, then head of the Anatomical Institute, examined the skulls of Sándor and his brother, two notorious criminals with a combined 70 felonies to their names. (The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree here – their father was hanged for horse thievery.) Lenhossék examined the brothers’ skulls for irregularities in size, volume and other details. He was fond, however, of cheating statistics in favour of his own theories, which for decades misled criminologists with his unscientific ‘findings’. Only later was it proved that felonious tendencies have far more sociological than genetic causes.
A journey through the depths of sin
The forensic section of the museum presents the technical details and specific cases of law enforcement. During the Habsburg years before 1918, the most unique crimes were installed in the museum, while under post-war Socialism, the most frequent ones were granted exhibition space. Nowadays, many famous crimes are documented as well, including the Bonnie and Clyde of Miskolc, the Whiskey Robber, five-time killer Marinko Magda, the Skálá Store Murderers, the notorious Lajos Soós and the Serial Killer of Martfű. From a forensic point of view, what is new or special is what is interesting.
This part of the exhibition is constantly being updated, with new details being added to cases still under investigation. These range from light offences to mafia murders and other serious crimes.
The objects in the forensic section are mostly direct pieces of evidence, on-site photographs and scale mock-ups of crime scenes. It’s worth seeing, but only for those with a strong stomach, as some of the displays are disturbingly gruesome. There are home-made killing tools from all sorts of everyday objects, whose invention comes from the deepest depths of human depravity. There are also photographs of paedophilic and necrophilic crime scenes, with accompanying descriptions reminding the viewer that everything on display is not a movie, but reality.
Closing the forensic section are the tools used by experts and investigators, as well as a sledgehammer and police motorbikes down the ages. The most famous Hungarian police dog, Kántor, is also on display. In the 1970s, a TV series aired about the brave canine – its on-screen double, Tuskó, stands alongside.
The exhibition explains that police dogs are most often used in patrols, where their doggy noses can distinguish between 6-7,000 different odours. They are trained to sniff out drugs by being presented with the task as a game. Their favourite toy is made to smell like the drug they will be looking for, so when the dog is on the scene, it thinks it’s looking for its toy. In this way, the dogs don’t try to eat the drugs once they’re found, but bring them back to their owners.
Police Museum (website Hungarian-only)
District VIII. Mosonyi utca 5
Open: Tue-Sat 9am-5pm
