Zoltán Balog: Responsibility of leaders concerning decisions affecting people’s fates is immeasurable and measurable.

The message of more than half a million Hungarian victims and heroes of the Great War and the almost twenty million deaths caused by the First World War is that state leaders have both an immeasurable and measurable responsibility when making decisions that affect people’s fates, Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog declared at the event organised to commemorate the centenary of World War I in northern Italy on 30 July.

In his speech at the Hungarian Chapel in Visintini, near the municipality of Doberdo del Lago in the Gorizia province of northern Italy, site of the death of tens of thousands of Hungarian soldiers during the Great War, Zoltán Balog said that loss will become much more than simply a loss if its message is understood. Referring to the fighting in Eastern Ukraine, he noted that no one would have thought at the time that Hungarian soldiers would be sent to war again in Europe on the 100th anniversary of the 1914-18 war.

“I wonder if Europe and European leaders will be responsible, wise and brave enough to make decisions that will save human lives” he asked, adding that “No one has the right to put other people’s lives at risk”. Among other things he said that they were commemorating the heroes and soldiers who had not lost their faith and patriotism. “Their stories are the legacy of the Hungarian Chapel (of Visintini)”, he added.

A makeshift chapel was erected in Visintini in 1916 by Hungarian soldiers who suffered severe losses in the area, and the chapel was ceremoniously re-consecrated in 2009.

The Minister mentioned that during the First World War Italy was an ally and then an enemy, and today the memory of those victims is cherished by both countries. He emphasized: “The past becomes collective in our common present, but it is impossible to commemorate together without knowledge of the collective past”.

According to the Minister, on the 100th anniversary of the breaking out of the First World War there is a chance for the spiritual and cultural reawakening of Europe, which was fragmented by the wars of the last century. A chance to permanently re-join everything that was broken apart in 1914.

(MTI – Ministry of Human Resources)