The museum

The Mili­tary Mus­e­um of Orosz­ka has the lar­gest pri­vate coll­ec­ti­on of mili­tary objects of Cent­ral Euro­pe focus­ing on the war­fa­re events of the three months of the local front of World War II and giving a gap fil­ling descri­pi­ti­on of the fates of the Ger­man-Hun­ga­ri­an and Sovi­et sol­di­ers who fought there.

The visi­tor is taken on a real journey thro­ugh time in the two-storey main buil­ding giving home to the uni­que collection.

In addi­ti­on to a mul­ti­tu­de of wea­pons, infant­ry spa­des, drink­ing bott­les, mess-tins, ammu­ni­tions, batt­le tanks, guns, uni­forms, pho­tos, bad­ges and medals one can wan­der among life-size diora­mas and meet i.a. the Ger­man poli­ce­man guard­ing the fuel bun­ker and the sol­di­ers hiding wit­hin the bun­ker, and – lis­te­ning to the popu­lar tunes of the peri­od —  sha­re the fee­lings of the soil­ders as they pon­der over the­ir lunch long­ing for peace but pre­pa­ring for the next battle.

At the moment the Mus­e­um hous­es app­rox. 400 hand wea­pons. But it is not only relics, uni­forms and hand wea­pons that are disp­la­yed here by the hund­reds. Air­pla­ne wrecks, hea­vy wea­pons, ope­ra­ti­o­nal mili­tary vehic­les and vari­o­us art­il­lery wea­pons make every visi­tor’s jaw drop whet­her that be a young child or an adept adult.

Who­e­ver feels like gett­ing a clos­er insight into des­ti­ni­es of indi­vi­du­als in war­ti­me can spend hours immer­sed in studying the disp­lays of the Mus­e­um. Here every object has a history.

The keen visi­tor can dis­co­ver the bound­less inven­ti­ve­ness of the civi­li­an popu­la­ti­on thro­ugh examp­les like what was the fee­ding pla­te of the dog of the his­to­ry tea­cher of the Scho­ol of Kéménd at that time, or how a Rus­si­an hel­met was con­ver­ted into a cauld­ron or a plas­ter sco­op; what a ham­me­red armo­ur vest can be used for, or what was the func­ti­on of the wire found in the pants of the Ame­ri­can pilot who per­for­med emer­gency land­ing over the vil­lage Garamszentbenedek.

Furt­her­mo­re, infor­ma­ti­on is pro­vi­ded on how grap­evi­ne climbs up the 23 mm machi­ne gun of an Ilyus­hin long-range bom­ber, or what hens have to do with a Pant­her Tank wheel that hit a mine.

The most tre­a­sured object on disp­lay at the Mus­e­um is uni­que in the world. In the nearby forest an exp­lo­si­on sent the hel­met of one of the soil­ders land­ing on a young tree, which had comp­let­ely grown thro­ugh it over time. The result­ing strange com­po­sit­i­on anno­un­ces natu­re’s for­ce and rebirth.

Visi­tors to this place can truly expe­ri­en­ce for a time both men­tal­ly and emo­ti­o­nally what had actu­ally hap­pe­ned in our count­ry dis­t­rict, and with all due adm­ira­ti­on and respect, they will want to live so that events like that may never-ever occur again.