The exhibition rooms

Chapters of one story — across floors and outdoors.

• 01

  Industrialization

  Ground floor. The story of forced industrialization. After 1948 the regime imposed a planned economy and raised giant factories, turning agricultural towns into industrial centres. Satu Mare gained new plants — machinery, garments, auto parts — and its population was rapidly "proletarianized." Across 12 themes, the room shows the mechanism (the five-year plan, the permanent construction site, production propaganda) and its cost: wasted resources, a degraded environment, and a society reshaped by force.

• 02

  Everyday life under communism

  First floor. How life was actually lived in the industrialized city. Job assignment, the daily commute, the woman who worked both in the factory and at home, the apartment block — and the scarcity of the 1980s: queues for bread, oil and sugar, rationing by card, the black market, cold homes. In the background, the nearness of the border, which made life here different.

• 03

  The border crossers

  First floor. A dark room about those who tried to flee. Under communism, tens of thousands attempted to cross the border to the West illegally — an act treated as a political crime, for which a 1971 decree allowed border guards to open fire. Many were caught, sentenced or shot; others drowned or vanished. Reconstructed through lights, warnings and fear, the room gives a face to those for whom freedom meant a path through the dark — often a fatal one.

• 04

  The commuters' wagon

  First floor. A commuters' railway car, reconstructed. Industrialization created a new class: the worker who lived in the village and worked in the city, caught each day between train, factory and home. The room recreates the crowding, the exhaustion and the life spent on the road — the lost hours, the stolen sleep, and the makeshift community of the compartment.

• 05

  The workshop

  First floor. A factory machine shop, reconstructed. Machine tools, slogans on the walls, the smell of oil and the noise of production — the place where the five-year plan became real work. The room shows the everyday of the factory: the quotas, the improvisation, the pride of the craft and the wear, all at once.

• 06

  Temporary exhibitions

  Second floor. A multifunctional space for temporary exhibitions, openings, screenings and conferences — where the museum extends its story with new testimony, research and dialogue with the public.

• 07

  The exhibition park

  Outdoors. Large industrial machines, mine cars and installations recovered from the city's factories, alongside an events area and an industrial-themed playground. Rusted iron becomes memory — the physical trace of the era told inside.