Karacsony on Holocaust: ‘We are largely responsible’

“Let us not stay idle when we see further discrimination, stigmatisation, and hate mongering,” the mayor said at a municipal commemoration.

Karacsony said the history of Jews and non-Jewish Hungarians was “inseparable” and called for “taking on the necessary but trying task of reflection”.

At the commemoration, held at Boraros Square, a monument was unveiled to pay tribute to victims of an infamous internment camp south of Budapest.

President Sulyok pays tribute to Holocaust victims

President Tamas Sulyok, marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day at a ceremony held in Parliament on Tuesday, said paying tribute to the victims was also “an expression of responsibility for the future”. In his address, the president said that “respectful and honest” remembrance required “reflections on our past duties with an outlook on the present and the future.”

“Taking responsibility for the past, including my personal history, I pay tribute to all victims of the Holocaust,” the president said.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog greeted participants of the commemoration in a video message. In the video, he called the Holocaust the darkest chapter in world history, adding that the crimes against Hungarian Jews stood out for having taken place so rapidly and with little resistance from the larger population.

He said he was grateful to Hungary for taking responsibility for the country’s collaboration with the Nazis in the past and for participating in international Holocaust-related organisations.

Navracsics: Responsible commemoration needed for better world

Tibor Navracsics, the public administration and regional development minister, marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Tuesday, said it was important to remember the victims of the Holocaust each year and work to make sure future generations could live in a better world.

At the commemoration in Tapolca, in western Hungary, on the 80th anniversary of the tragedy, Navracsics opened a travelling exhibition entitled Stories from a Family Album, and said that at the end of the second world war, states had turned against their own citizens and taken their lives with “industrial cruelty”.

In all localities in Europe there was a duty to mourn and remember the victims of the Holocaust, he said.