Leave Everything Behind?The micro-history of forced migration in Central Europe after World War II focuses on groups of ethnic minorities who were expelled in the years after the war, forced to leave their homes behind and take only some of their belongings.
?The collection?s concrete historical value is not the only interesting thing, but the approach to it,? said curator Erika Vass. ?It directs one?s attention to the fact that personal histories are part of the big narrative. Everybody?s life story is instructive and worth preserving,? she added.
The exhibition has been recast from one that was earlier hosted by the Szentendre Open Air Museum.
Some of the pieces in the exhibition are on loan from the Hungarian Heritage Museum, run by the American Hungarian Foundation in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
The exhibition is part of a broader programme the institute wants to start called Personal History ? Common Heritage: The Stories of American Hungarians. Under the programme, such stories would be collected, archived and published online in Hungarian and English.
The exhibition can be seen until February 16.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
