The Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (Mazsihisz) commemorated the 77th anniversary of the liberation of the Jewish ghetto in Budapest, at an event organised by the Raoul Wallenberg Association and the Embassy of Sweden in Budapest.
“Remembrance is a part of our shared future,” András Heisler, President of Mazsihisz said at the commemoration, “The survivors of the Holocaust will soon all be gone “and we’ll be left to ourselves with the duty, and curse, of remembrance”, he said.
Heisler said the descendants of Holocaust survivors had a duty to keep the memories of their ancestors alive, because otherwise they would be disowning the suffering their parents and grandparents had endured.
József Sebes, head of the Raoul Wallenberg Association, said his organisation wanted to honour the actions of its namesake by contributing to a way of thinking that people should be judged by their personalities and not based on their belonging to a certain group. Sebes named the fight against racial, religious and political discrimination as a key goal of the association.
Dag Hartelius, Sweden’s ambassador to Hungary, said everyone had a duty to remember the Holocaust and had a role to play in the fight against antisemitism, adding that Wallenberg’s legacy served as a guiding principle in this.
Zoltán István Horváth, parish priest of the Cathedral of St. Theresa of Avila, said young people needed to be told about those who helped save Jews during the Holocaust, so that they could serve as role models whose “faith, conviction, love and humanity defeats all forms of fear” and who were willing to risk their lives to save those facing persecution.
