‘Never, Never, Never Again…!’

The opening address was delivered by Dr. Tivadar Somogyi, the deputy mayor of Győr, who stressed that the future is rooted in the past, so people must know their own history. The deputy mayor pointed out that today’s youth are in a slightly better situation than his age group used to be because “these days we can see clearly that the second half of the 20th century was paved with suffering. Today we can see distinctly what an evil deed the genocide was."

“The 20th century saw a lot of victims. But there is no difference between one victim and another and there can never be, for human life is sacrosanct. We feel the same pain when we think of the victims of the Holocaust and the Gulags. Posterity must make sure that no one can blacken their memories"  said the deputy mayor.

Dr. Csaba Hende began his speech by recalling the sad story of Ernő Kulinyi. In the year of the Trianon peace treaty, the songwriter wrote the lyrics of the song ’You are nice, you are beautiful, Hungary…’ (Szép vagy, gyönyörű vagy Magyarország), the

music of which was composed by Zsigmond Vincze. “Then Hungary was occupied by Nazi Germany and members of the Hungarian Cross Arrow Party collaborating with the Nazis seized power. Because of his descent, Ernő Kulinyi, the songwriter was carried off and killed, and the song was prohibited"  said the Defence Minister.

“The Holocaust is history  but history does not pass. It is with us. It is with us in those who lived through all this, and it is with us in the loss and the absence the Holocaust meant to this nation. That is a tragedy we had not faced for forty years, then in the years following the 1989 transition, it came to the forefront of political skirmishes. One political side was using it as a communication wonder weapon against the other. In 2001, the National Assembly introduced the Holocaust Memorial Day in Hungary with a view to finally elevating this national tragedy above the din of battle and putting it in the place it deserves"  pointed out the Defence Minister.

He added that we cannot avoid facing history, as we must face that we have lost.
“We must remember, so that we can say with

strong faith and with one mind that never, never, never again can anything like this happen" – this was how Dr. Csaba Hende closed his address.

In his commemorative speech Tibor Villányi, the president of the Jewish Community of Győr raised the question whether human words are capable of expressing and describing the horrors of the Holocaust.

“There are some who say that after sixty-seven years, we should forget what happened. I say it is a crime to forget", he emphasized.

Tibor Villányi stressed that it is appalling to see that some people in Hungary think there was no Holocaust. “On hearing about such things, tears come into my eyes, and I wish they were right and the hundreds of thousands who had been killed back then were still alive today"  said the president.

The speeches were followed by the mourners’ prayer, then the participants placed the stones of remembrance on the memorial of Holocaust victims, and were shown the synagogue.

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Photo: Mária Krasznai-Nehrebeczky