On Tuesday evening at the Dohány utca synagogue in Budapest, the Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office János Lázár said that the Holocaust was not only an unchristian and inhumane act, but was also an act of treason.
In a welcome speech delivered at a concert to mark the first plenary session of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) under Hungarian chairmanship, Mr. Lázár said that the Hungarian nation would not have achieved all that it has done in the past few centuries “without our Jewish brothers and sisters”, and that “without each other we would be poorer and much diminished”.
For the Hungarian people aggressive intolerance is therefore an act of self-mutilation, the Minister said. In consequence, he added, it is important to use every single occasion “which gives us the opportunity to state in no uncertain terms that we shall not allow an act of self-mutilation to be performed on the Hungarian nation. We are a single nation, and we shall protect one another.”
Mr. Lázár also said that Hungarian Jews were always present and played their part in every important shared battle in the nation’s history – be it a revolution, freedom fight or war.
They were there, side by side with their compatriots, together with whom they constitute a multi-faceted, and yet unified, single community, the Hungarian nation, the Minister pointed out.
There was no one there, however, to support them seventy years ago, except for a handful of brave, genuine patriots “whose hearts and minds were in the right place also in hard times”, and who saved, or at least defended, the integrity of the nation. In addition to naming the crimes and those who committed them and remembering the victims and those who suffered persecution, we must also take time to find room in the nation’s memory for Hungarian rescuers, however painfully few they may have been, Mr Lázár added. He mentioned Sára Salkaházi, János Esterházy, Margit Slachta and Gábor Sztehlo as examples.
The Minister said that “Seventy years ago the Hungarian nation died six hundred thousand times – in cattle trucks, in concentration camps and on the banks of the Danube; it cannot be reborn until we have done everything we can to fully uncover the history of all our six hundred thousand compatriots who perished – or at least write their names on a leaf of the Emanuel Tree or on the memorial wall of the Holocaust Memorial Centre in Páva utca.”
It is imperative that we should not merely be aware of what happened, but should fully understand it, he said. This is an opportunity, but also a mission and profound obligation of education, the Minister said.
The establishment of the Holocaust Memorial Centre in Budapest’s Páva utca and the introduction of compulsory Holocaust education as part of the national curriculum are about accepting this responsibility, Mr Lázár added.
András Heisler, President of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (Mazsihisz) said that Hungary had not been allowed to face up to its own history during the years of dictatorship, and neglected its duty to do so after the fall of communism. He added that perhaps a result of this have been conflicts in Hungary’s policy on remembrance in the Holocaust memorial year, as well as everyday episodes of anti-Semitism.
Mr Heisler said that the memory of the six hundred thousand Hungarian citizens of Jewish origin who perished during the Holocaust does not allow us to make any compromise in our remembrance policy. “There is no power that could make us an offer that would lead us to deny the memory of our martyrs”, he said.
The President of Mazsihisz also pointed out that the zero tolerance on anti-Semitism announced by the Prime Minister is inimical to “any kind of anti-Semitic utterances, either in the toughest bar-room or among the intelligentsia”, and is likewise inimical to “the political recognition of former public figures who were complicit in the abduction of the country’s Jewish citizens, the trampling of their rights and their mass murder, or who are simply known to have held anti-Semitic views”.
Mr. Heisler warned his audience that anti-Semitic speech is intensifying throughout Europe. As an example he cited criticism of András Nemes Jeles’s film “Son of Saul”, which, after its success at the Cannes Film Festival, “became the subject of anti-Semitic speech, simply because it is about the Holocaust”. As a further example he mentioned the “quasi-Nazi rhetoric” directed against Pázmány Péter Catholic University for introducing Holocaust studies as a mandatory module in its courses.
Everyone must accept that to be a little bit anti-Semitic is unacceptable, in the same was as it is to hold markedly Nazi views, Mr Heisler stressed, adding that if Hungarian politics “embraces this premise, there is hope”.
In his speech, Szabolcs Takács, State Secretary for European Union Affairs at the Prime Minister’s Office and Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, said that chairmanship of the Alliance is both an honour and great responsibility for Hungary. The Chair stressed that in remembering one of the most horrific and irremediable losses in European and Hungarian history, “we also have cause to celebrate, as there has been a revival and flourishing of Jewish cultural and religious life, without which Europe is not Europe and Hungary is not Hungary”.
Hungary took over the IHRA Chairmanship from the United Kingdom in March this year; the first plenary meeting is being held in Budapest from Monday to Thursday. The meeting is being attended by some two hundred experts from the international organisation.
The prime objective of the IHRA is to promote the preservation of Holocaust remembrance, and academic research and education.
(Prime Minister's Office/MTI)
