Hungary pays tribute to victims of communism, forced labour camps

Budapest, February 25 (MTI) – Commemorations were held nationwide on Wednesday in memory of the victims of totalitarianism and the hundreds of thousands deported from Hungary to forced labour camps during World War Two.

As all communist leaders are responsible for the Gulag, no institution in Hungary should be allowed to carry the name of a communist, Antal Rogan, head of ruling Fidesz’s parliamentary group, said. Addressing a commemoration at Budapest’s Gulag memorial, Rogan emphasised that the crimes had been committed by the communists not the Russian people.

“The ideal of equality failed to create a society of equal and happy people. Forced labour camps were the only place where this ideal was fully translated into reality,” he said.

People in the western world who had no personal experience with the horrors of communism tend to relativise or belittle communist crimes but this is something central Europeans should never allow, Rogan said.

Zsolt Semjen, deputy prime minister, said at another event that “inhuman dictatorships will sink deep in history.” Addressing a commemoration in the village of Pocspetri, in north-eastern Hungary, he said that “since people tend to forget, memoires about the Gulag must be read from time to time.”