Hungary has given prominence to a commemoration event marking the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Totalitarian Regimes.
Miklós Kásler, minister of Human Capacities, said the government does everything to let us live in freedom, according to our traditions, ancient right, and culture.
In his address at the event, Minister Kásler emphasized that all of our sovereignty and efficiency must be provided because that enables us to guarantee the future of all our compatriots, families and nation.
He added that this is the only way to prevent inhumane ideologies and dictatorships emerging from them that would “endanger the physical, material and spiritual existence” in Hungary and Europe. Hungary contradicted and still contradicts totalitarian ideologies, he said.
The minister also pointed out that Hungary, Poland, and Lithuania suffered from the devastations of both Communism and Nazism. Thus on the initiative of these countries, since 2011, the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Totalitarian Regimes has been marked on August 23rd, the anniversary of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact concluded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
Mária Schmidt, the director of the House of Terror Museum in Budapest said on the commemoration that Nazism and Communism have a common legacy which is ‘human wickedness.’
The director emphasized the importance to remember the heroes who stood up against the oppressive regimes and drew attention to the disturbing tendencies that seemingly there’s a renaissance of Communism among the leaders of the European Union.
In the framework of the commemoration, participants walked from Kossuth square to the House of Terror Museum, also putting white roses into the Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial.