Hungary has remembered the millions of innocent people forced into Gulag labor camps at the inauguration of a public installation made for the Gulag memorial year.
At the event, the deputy mayor of Budapest said it was one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.
An estimated 800,000 Hungarians were deported to the forced labor camps in the Soviet Union during and after the Second World War, and nearly 300,000 died on the way or while imprisoned in the camps, Alexandra Szalay-Bobrovniczky said.
Upon returning to Hungary, the survivors were forced by the secret services to stay quiet about their ordeal.
The public installation has been set up in Budapest’s City Hall Park and has already been on show in Szombathely and Pécs and will travel to Debrecen. The Gulag memorial year runs until February 25.