Dr Csaba Latorcai, Deputy State Secretary for Priority Social Affairs at the Prime Minister’s Office attended and delivered a speech at the commemoration held in the Páva utca Holocaust Memorial Centre on the occasion of the Memorial Day of the Victims of the Hungarian Holocaust.
The Holocaust is one of the greatest tragedies of not only the Hungarian Jewish community, but also of the history of the whole of Hungarian society. Its memory must be kept alive so that future generations should not, in the light of the past, commit the same atrocities which have already occurred once before.
With its measures adopted in recent years, the Government of Hungary intended to serve the development of a remembrance culture which pays tribute to the memory of the martyrs of the Holocaust and those who rescued human lives. The Wallenberg Memorial Year in 2012 was organised with this intention in mind, which was followed by the Holocaust Memorial Year in 2014. Additionally, the government grants provided for the programmes launched with a view to the refurbishment of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues as well as for programmes which seek to introduce Jewish culture and traditions, too, serve this purpose.
Based on a decree of the Ministry of Education, as of the year 2000, 16 April is dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust in Hungary every year. It was this day in 1944 that marked the beginning of the incarceration of Jews in ghettos in Transcarpathia and their subsequent deportation.