Hunglish.orgThe AVH was the secret police force in Hungary during the communist era in the country. Scott Savoie takes a brief look at the jokes and ignominy that resulted from the AVH's presence. And hopefully he'll back tomorrow.
Written by Scott Savoie
The AVH were the secret police in Hungary.
If the movie „Szabadsag Szerelem” is to be believed, they were a brutish group of thugs who beat and tortured people. They did in the movie, anyway.
In real life, they were probably worse.
The AVH took up residence at 60 Andrássy Avenue right after it was evacuated by the Arrow Cross. This address has seen untold horrors and indeed now houses a museum called the „House of Terror,” I believe.
The name of the museum has changed names and focus according to political pressures a couple of times.
So as a way of getting revenge on all of those policemen, police jokes are part of Hungarian culture. These jokes are often like blonde jokes or Polish jokes in North America and usually involve the policeman being too dumb to know what a mirror is or being unable to locate his posterior.
Rarely do these jokes involve policemen coming into your house at night, beating you senseless, tossing you in the back of a truck, and hauling you off to a concentration camp to be tortured ... But maybe some of the „jokes” may have resulted in just that.
Luckily, Hungary is now a free and open pluralistic society that …what? What’s that at my door? Who are all those people? Oh my god! Oh my god! Ahhhhhhh….