In the fall of 2013, on the 70th anniversary of the Hungarian Holocaust, the Hungarian government announced plans to create a Holocaust memorial and museum at Józsefváros Railway Station, one of the locations of the last deportations from Hungary.

The building complex designed by Attila F. Kovács has since been completed and is known today as the House of Fates.

“This is the first time anyone has tried to create a memorial site of this magnitude in Hungary. This building complex is unique in Hungary. The entire site can be considered a built-up area that has several separate groups of buildings above the surface, including the restored railway station. This built-up area covers the 2,000 m2 exhibition site, with underground connections between the buildings. The complex is, in fact, an abstract mapping of the events that took place 70 years ago: It solidifies a slice of the past in a contemporary, built-up manifestation.”

Details of the central exhibition were subject to years of debate, and the government halted the project for a while until, in 2018, EMIH  – the Association of Hungarian Jewish Communities – eventually began working on a new exhibition concept. It took two years of hard work and intense effort to create the Etz Hayim – Tree of Life exhibition concept based on the traditional Jewish view of history. EMIH worked with Hungarian and international experts to develop this conceptualization, highlighting the moral standards essential for human existence and telling us about one of history’s greatest tragedies.