Dr Csaba Latorczai, Deputy State Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office for priority social affairs delivered a speech at the Uránia National Cinema at the commemoration held on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The United Nations Organization designated 27 January of every year the International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2005. On this day the World remembers the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Based on a variety of estimates, the Jewish Holocaust in Europe claimed some 6 million victims. Approximately every tenth victim killed during the Holocaust was from Hungary. The total number of Hungarian Jewish victims is estimated to be between 500,000 and 600,000.

This day calls upon every well-meaning human being to remember and to bow their head so that we can heal the visible and invisible wounds of the Holocaust and World War II together, the Deputy State Secretary said in his speech.

He added: the fact that the refurbishment of several synagogues in Hungary and beyond the borders began with funding from the Government, too, serves to heal the wounds. The Government also decided to set aside some HUF 1 billion in the 2016 budget for the renovation of abandoned Jewish cemeteries and burial sites.

Mr Latorczai further announced that the Prime Minister’s Office will soon release an illustrated publication presenting the events of the 2014 Holocaust Memorial Year which will introduce in the form of an album all the local initiatives and programmes with which civil-society organisations, municipalities and private individuals paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust throughout the country and beyond the borders.

The publication stands as proof of how Hungarian society as a whole mobilised itself in recognition of the importance of remembrance, the Deputy State Secretary highlighted in his speech.

(Prime Minister’s Office)