[1] Visitors including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Francis Fukuyama, and Hayden White have praised the institution.

The internal design, the final look of the museum's exhibition hall, and the external facade are all the work of architect Attila F. Kovács.

The museum's permanent exhibition contains material related to the nation's relationships to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

It also contains exhibits related to Hungarian organisations such as the fascist Arrow Cross Party and the communist ÁVH (similar to the Soviet KGB).

Some historians, journalists, and political scientists such as Magdalena Marsovszky or Ilse Huber have argued that the museum excessively portrays Hungary as the victim of foreign occupiers and does not sufficiently recognise the contribution that Hungarians themselves made to the regimes in question.