“The Holocaust is an eternal lesson that it is our duty to fight against prejudice on a daily basis to ensure that the souls and thoughts of future, upcoming generations are never again dominated by delusions and misconceptions”, Minister of State for Education László Palkovics declared at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
At the commemoration organised to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Mr. Palkovics said: the goal is for young people to “think differently than those who committed these acts”, adding that “the Holocaust not only means concentration camps, but also the fear and ignorance that was the substrate for hatred and anti-Semitism”.
According to the Minister of State, we must continuously work to preserve and maintain our own integrity, humanity, knowledge and memory, and that of our children.
“The Holocaust is also a responsibility, because we must shape our world to ensure that we cannot distance ourselves from an event in the belief that it doesn’t involve us”, he added.
“History and culture are a common issue, as is our future”, declared Mr. Palkovics, who said it was his “particular duty to ensure that children in schools grow up in the spirit of tolerance and acceptance, and learn that we must always raise our voices in protection of human life and fundamental human values”.
“Teaching is the only unified way of ensuring that children become acquainted with the relationship between our country and the Hungarian Jewish community, and also learn from our common past in such a way that the knowledge they acquire goes beyond simple historical data”, he said.
“The Holocaust is part of our national history, which it is our moral obligation to face up to”, the Minister of State said, stressing that “in addition to commemorating the innocent victims it is also our duty to ensure that similar tragedies can never occur again”.
At the ceremony, Israeli Ambassador to Budapest József Amrani spoke about the fact that the Holocaust was not just the tragedy of the Jewish people, but “an age in which civilization failed, in which cultural values dwindles to nothing”, and the six million dead are not simply a number, but the victims of the fist experiment in history aimed at eradicating a whole people from the pace of the earth.
“We cannot allow this to be repeated”, the Ambassador said, stressing that one of the differences between that age and the current situation is that thanks to Israel “we now have a home and a state, and will never again be unprotected”.
President of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (MAZSIHISZ) András Heisler highlighted the fact that in a few years’ time the eye witnesses of the Holocaust will no longer be with us, and this will mark “the beginning of the future of the history of Auschwitz”, and it will remain our responsibility to ensure that the upcoming generations have some kind of connection to this segment of history.
“We have a past that we can be proud of, and to which we are linked; we must create the foundations for the future of a Hungarian Jewish life in Hungary that is lively and diverse, and which takes stock of the Holocaust”, he noted. “We want to work and develop in a sober and hopeful Hungary that not only tolerates diversity, but celebrates it”, the President of MAZSIHISZ said.
Opening a commemorative exhibition on the gallery of the Synagogue in the Holocaust Memorial Center in Páva Street, Budapest, the Ministry of National Development’s Parliamentary State Secretary, János Főnagy, stressed that we must raise our voices against a “too all intents and purposes timeless part”, so that it will never again be repeated.
“We have no duties or room for movement in the past; that has already been determined. But the future is ours”, he declared, stressing the importance of the Memorial Center, which in addition to historical knowledge provides an emotional and moral interpretation of the past to present and future generations.
(MTI)
