Hungarian President János Áder marks Victims of Communism memorial day

President János Áder and First Lady Anita Herczegh on Friday lit candles in front of the House of Terror Museum, marking the Victims of Communism memorial day and the 20th anniversary of the museum’s inauguration.

Áder told public media afterwards that freedom was to be cherished by all Hungarians, now and in the future.

The museum, which opened twenty years ago in the former headquarters of Hungary’s Communist state security office, has drawn 7 million visitors since, and has hosted countless exhibitions, conferences and other events, he noted. It is a memorial to the importance of freedom of nations and individuals, Áder said. “That message is especially important today, when a war is raging in a neighbouring country,” he said.

The House of Terror Museum is marking the anniversary and the memorial day with candles at its “Wall of Heroes”, and with exhibitions and a light show in the evening.

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At a commemoration in downtown Budapest, House Speaker László Kövér called Communism “a lethal ideology”, and said that attempts to implement it had always resulted in bloody dictatorships.

“Even today, various mutations of the communist virus are spreading disease all over the Western world,” Kövér said at the event held at the memorial of national martyrs.

Modern proponents of communism aim to dismantle states, undo families and the middle class, and abolish private property, as did their predecessors in the 20th century, he said.

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Victims of the Communism – commemoration in the House of Terror, Budapest.
Photo: MTI/Máthé Zoltán

Kövér said Hungarians would remain Hungarians only if the state remained independent and could take effective action, if families continued to prosper, and “the fruits of the labour of Hungarians enriches mainly Hungarian public and private wealth”. He said the nation’s middle class “and its majority” must “protect our democratic order from political extremists allied to communists and fascists.”

Speaking in Nyíregyháza, in eastern Hungary, the prime minster’s chief of staff said naming the perpetrators of communist terror, and revealing the truth, was key to “laying the demons of the 20th century to rest”.

The “butchers of the House of Terror” should be named publicly, Gergely Gulyás said, referring to the acts of torture committed at the Budapest headquarters of the Communist state security headquarters (AVH) which now houses the House of Terror Museum.

“They tried to break the backbone of the nation by trampling the dignity of individuals,” he said.

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Source: MTI