The paper focuses on the methodological challenges of handling the material remains of banned theatre practices in Cold War Hungary. Focusing on the case of the collective Apartment Theatre (1972–6), it examines the relation of material remains, originally created by or for the socialist authorities in order to prove the danger caused by the collective, and the materials which were created by the group members as a countermovement to preserve their own memories and narratives. Consequently, archival practices of care as well as archival practices of suspicion together contribute to situating the collective in Hungarian and European cultural memory and theatre history.