It should become an endeavour shared by all that no one should ever again be discriminated, abused or killed because of their race or religion, Minister of the Interior Sandor Pinter said at an awarding ceremony of the Righteous among the Nations and the For Courage honours of the Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem Institute in Budapest on Thursday.
Pinter called for tough action against all attempts that threaten democratic society and the enforcement of human rights and fundamental freedoms. "The order of democratic values should be protected and all extremist and discriminating manifestations stifled," he said.
The Righteous among the Nations honour is granted to non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis. The honour has so far been awarded to 791 Hungarians. Today 11 Hungarians were given the title. All awards were granted posthumously and taken over by relatives of the deceased.
The minister said that hatred, anti-Semitism and racism are unacceptable. He said he hoped that "irrationality and barbarous hatred" would never return to Hungary.
Pinter noted that Hungary had declared 2012 a Wallenberg Year, dedicated to the memory of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who was born 100 years ago and saved tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest during the last year of the Second World War.
Israeli Ambassador to Hungary Ilan Mor read out a letter by Viktor Orban in which the prime minister expressed his government's profound commitment "to keep high the memory of the Holocaust on our political agenda".
Addressing the event, the ambassador attributed the Shoah to indifference. "Mankind showed its ugliest face. That was a world of moral collapse, defection and betrayal, a world of perpetrators, collaborators and indifferent people," he said.
One should explain to the extreme racists that they are wrong, and the government coalition at any time should take action against the far-right parliamentary parties, Mor told MTI after the ceremony.
(MTI)
