The exhibition was opened by museum director József Holló and the head of Hungary's border guard József Béndek.
The exhibition shows the uniforms, weapons and other tools of Hungary's border guard during three periods: from 1948 to 1956, from 1956 to 1989 and from 1989 to the present. Among the objects on view are a passenger pigeon cage, a Soviet-made night vision device and a Sokol-type transmitter. From the last period the exhibition covers, visitors can see the wire cutters used by Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyula Horn and his Austrian counterpart Alois Mock to symbolically cut the "iron curtain" dividing the two countries on June 27, 1989.
The objects in the exhibition have come from the border guard's central museum in the city of Körmend. Holló said other objects related to the border guard's activities which are being wound up as Hungary joins the Schengen zone would be processed by the museum and included in the exhibition in the future too.
After WWII, Hungary's borders were the responsibility of the Defense Border Guard, which was overseen by the Army. On January 1, 1950, the Border Guard merged with the State Protection Office, which took over controls of Hungary's borders. In the three years that followed, a system of border controls was established first in the South, then in the West. The border was divided into 15-kilometre stretches along which 500-metre and 50-metre bands were delineated. Only border guards were allowed in the 50-metre band.
Along Hungary's border in the West, a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire was built. Mine fields were laid along 318 kilometres of border in both the West and the South. These mine fields were removed along some stretches in 1956, but replaced along the Western border in 1957. The mine fields were removed in 1971 to be replaced with a 248-kilometre-long electric fence and monitoring system of Soviet design.
After the fall of communism in 1989, the old system of total border controls was no longer necessary or feasible. Areas along the border were rehabilitated and the last traces of barbed wire were removed by the beginning of 1990.
Source: Múlt-kor / Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
