Holocaust remembrance held in Budapest today

The Walk for Life will take place in Budapest this evening to mark the anniversary of the start of the Holocaust in Hungary. As last year, marchers carrying torches from the Dohány utca synagogue to a memorial on the Danube embankment will pay tribute to the victims of the Holocaust and those who risked their lives to save their fellow human beings.

Speaker Katalin Szili, as well as governing and opposition politicians have indicated they will take part. Fidesz will be represented by Fifth District mayor Antal Rogán. The gathering will be addressed by Budapest mayor Gábor Demszky, Bishop of Esztergom-Budapest János Székely.

Candles will be lit and a memorial concert played outside the House of Terror museum this evening at 8 p.m. Speeches will be made by museum director Mária Schmidt, Culture Minister István Hiller, human rights committee chairman Zoltán Balog of Fidesz, Holocaust survivor István Domokos and Socialist MP Tamás Suchman.

A Holocaust memorial week begins throughout Hungary today with film screenings, exhibitions and remembrances, as well as scholarly conferences.

April 16 was declared Hungarian Holocaust Memorial Day by the Orbán government in 2000 as German and Hungarian fascist forces began confining Jews in ghettos on that day in 1944.

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