An underground rock hospital in the city
MúzeumCafé 9.
Castle Hill in Buda conceals a secret military bunker hospital not used since 1956. Today it is unique as a medical history museum and as an industrial monument. As “the international situation was intensifying” ‘milkmen’ began frequenting the rock hospital and ‘gardeners’ approached the flower beds with watering carts. Instead of milk and water they pumped fuel through the ‘flowerbeds’ of Bástya Avenue to the depths of Castle Hill in strict secrecy. Huge containers five floors underground in an officially non-existent cave cellar were ready to take the fuel – always sufficient for three weeks – for running two diesel generators at the end of the cave system which was connected by corridors. The halls had futuristic machinery: radiation detectors, water purifiers and military gas filters. These were never put to use, but until the ban was lifted seven years ago the place was not to be mentioned. It was during the Cold War that the Civil Defence Emergency Hospital was converted into a nuclear-proof bunker hospital. The appointed staff from János Hospital would have survived a possible nuclear attack in the caves under Szentháromság Street, a short walk from Matthias Church. The underground hospital would have opened for survivors seventy-two hours after an attack. The accumulated gas masks, chemical proof stocks and medicine for treating anti-radiation sickness suggest a well-developed system. Survivors would have had to go through isolation chambers to first undress, shave and shower, and then to recuperate. How many would have remained alive after a nuclear attack on Budapest? The emergency hospital luckily never had to be used in this manner The anaesthetizing machine, the gem of the operating theatre, was only used once. Madonna was ‘put to sleep’ with it in the film Evita, which was partly shot in Budapest. Yet before smiling at the notion of carving a nuclear-proof bunker right in the middle of Castle Hill, it is worth thinking over the real threat.
You are on the border of East and West. The ten-kilometre cave system winding deep inside Castle Hill had provided natural protection for people for centuries. No wonder it was developed and fortified during the turbulent periods of the 20th century. A video film introduces the museum tour. You then pass through the kitchen, the radio room, the operating theatres, convalescence rooms and wards. A separate walk leads to the engine room, the generators and the equipment for ‘nuclear proof’ protection. Life-like wax figures and contemporary objects help to make the 2300-square-metre space look as it did. The nearest similar exhibition can be found by the English Channel. There a rock hospital carved into the white cliffs of Dover also operates like a wax-works today. Budapest’s Rock Hospital opened in February 1944. During and after the siege of the capital the following winter, the doctors dispatched from János Hospital and the voluntary Red Cross nurses treated the injured here, though the mortality rate was rather high due to the lack of water, equipment and medication, as well as epidemics and overcrowding. As the Cold War approached the place became ‘top secret’ and reconstruction began under the supervision of the State Security Organisation. The cave system functioned as a hospital in 1956.