Transcarpathian Hungarians remember 1944 deportations

Berehove, November 20 (MTI) – The tens of thousands of Transcarpathian (kárpátaljai) Hungarians and Germans who perished in Soviet forced labour camps after World War Two were commemorated in Berehove (Beregszasz), Ukraine, on Friday.

Csaba Latorcai, cabinet deputy state secretary for social relations, told a conference that there are numerous memorials and personal stories “to remind and warn us that the events of 70 years ago must never reoccur”. He said that neither the suffering and death of millions under communist dictatorship nor the tragedies of the Holocaust can ever be called into question.

Latorcai said today’s generation has a responsibility to remember the victims of all 20th-century European dictatorships, regardless of whether they were killed under Nazi or Soviet rule.

He said one of the government’s goals with declaring 2015 a memorial year for Gulag victims was to contribute to ensuring that Hungarians living in diaspora communities can retain their Hungarian identity.