Secret hospital lies dormant beneath Budapest

By Krisztina Than

BUDAPEST (Reuters Life!) - Just beyond a huge iron gate on Budapest's historic Castle Hill lies a secret medical complex that has survived a Soviet siege, a failed revolution and the long, dreary days of the Cold War.

The Sziklakorhaz (Hospital in the Rocks) first opened in 1944 as an emergency shelter just 10-15 metres below the surface of the city. During the desperate days of the 1944 Soviet siege of Budapest, doctors and nurses treated thousands of Hungarian casualties here and again in 1956, when an attempt to overthrow Soviet rule was brutally crushed.

During the Cold War, the hospital could only be mentioned using a code name, but it has now opened to the public as a museum nearly two decades after the collapse of Communism.

Its power generators, ventilation system and medical equipment are nearly 50 years old but are still operational, though the medicine and bandages are long past expiration.

"Everything could still be switched on and the hospital itself is still 'alive', it needs to be aired every night," says Tamas Degi, 31, chief engineer at Budapest's Szent Janos hospital which now owns the museum.

"If we did not air the rooms, everything would be covered in mould and rust due to the high humidity."

Long winding corridors lead to operation rooms and two large rooms filled with beds which were once the last chance for injured civilians and soldiers.

The lighting, the cold, and dozens of wax figures dressed as doctors, nurses and wounded patients with faces distorted by pain give the place an eerie atmosphere.

In the last days of the Soviet siege of Nazi-occupied Budapest, it was the only useable hospital and there were days when more than 600 patients were crammed into the rooms.

After the end of World War Two the underground hospital was out of use for several years until 1953 when Hungary's communist leadership thought it may be needed again.

"Then it was equipped again, modernized, expanded and the entrance disguised as it was declared a secret hospital," Degi said.

CASUALTIES

In 1956 the hospital was opened to treat casualties during the failed uprising against communist dictatorship.

Endre Bacskai was shot just outside the Hungarian Radio building in the early hours of October 24, 1956, the second day of the uprising, and in November he was transferred to the hospital along with other revolutionaries.

Bacskai, who was severely injured, did not know for quite a while where he ended up and by the end of November the Hungarian uprising had been crushed and the hospital was used as a prison.

"We knew it was day time when the lights were on, and night when it was dark with the monotonous sound of the diesel engines running," says Bacskai, who was only 20 at the time.

He escaped with the help of a friend and family and spent two years in and out of hospitals, but his leg was saved.

Now sitting on a hospital bed in the room where he was once a wounded revolutionary and then prisoner, the horrible memories come tumbling into his mind.

"I came back here (with my wife) among the first (when it was opened last year) and ... it was a terrible feeling," Bacskai says.

In 1958-1962 the hospital was refurbished again as the authorities thought it could serve as a shelter in case of nuclear attack, but it has never been used again.