Holocaust Remembrance Day: President Sulyok spoke about his father’s Nazi past

President Tamás Sulyok, marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day at a ceremony held in Parliament on Tuesday, said paying tribute to the victims was also “an expression of responsibility for the future”.

In his address, the president said that “respectful and honest” remembrance required “reflections on our past duties with an outlook on the present and the future.”

“Taking responsibility for the past, including my personal history, I pay tribute to all victims of the Holocaust,” the president said.

According to 444, speaking at the state commemoration, the President of the Republic said of his father’s National Socialist past:

I have been disturbed by what I have heard about my father in public in recent weeks.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog greeted participants of the commemoration in a video message. In the video, he called the Holocaust the darkest chapter in world history, adding that the crimes against Hungarian Jews stood out for having taken place so rapidly and with little resistance from the larger population.

He said he was grateful to Hungary for taking responsibility for the country’s collaboration with the Nazis in the past and for participating in international Holocaust-related organisations.