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Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, dear Friends!!
The March of the Living has a worrying timeliness today,
and it is painful to remember the victims of the holocaust.
Perhaps too many of us thought
that even if posterity had not learnt the lessons of the pre-20th century tragedies of history,
surely they drew the conclusions from
the genocide and mass murders committed by the Nazis and their collaborates,
the members of the Arrow Cross Party.
We were wrong. The fanatic delegates of Jobbik,
the party evoking the tradition and evil spirituality of Nazi Hungary,
will represent this nation-distructing,
accursed legacy in the Parliament from now on.
A legacy, against which the blood of nearly six hundred thousand Jews,
thousands of Romas and innocent victims
belonging to other communities cries out to posterity and,
according to my personal convictions, to God.
Yet if a fanatic man gains uncontrollable authority,
and becomes demonised by hatred,
he will be able to cripple his fellow man.
He will be able to tread the rights and dignity of his fellow man to the clay,
will be able to rob him of one's greatest treasure, one's life
– doing this in the most shameful way to act against one's humanity.
History proves this as well.
And it also proves that mankind can hardly compensate
the victims after the rage of holocausts.
Neither can it return
destroyed lives and robbed fates.
We are left with remembering.
Kötelességünk emlékezni mindazokra,
It is our duty to remember all those who became tragic sufferers
of maniac ethnic and religious cleansing of political madmen.
Though remembrance cannot give life and call back to life
the children, young people, adults and old ones,
who were thrust to the pit of destruction
with wickedness surpassing that of beasts,
empowered by false Nazi and Arrow Cross ideologies
de az utókornak akkor is tudnia kell,
- posterity must still know that it owes these martyrs,
it is its duty carved in stone tablets
to honour their memory
and the historical reality of their tragedy.
We are humans so as to interpret the past
not according to the self justification of the government in power,
but according to the real tragedy of the victims,
the defenceless and humiliated ones.
This is the reason for our gathering here today,
so that the remembrance of the concentration camps,
extermination camps, mass graves and the way of death
of the past would last from generation to generation.
And we are saying, that the diabolic creators of these,
the Nazis, the Arrow Cross members, the anti-semitic and their descendants
deserved repudiation from the civilized world and the judgement of God forever.
Year by year the March of the Living
serves as a point of orientation for the Hungarian society.
It show the distinction between the right way
and the impassable for humanity.
We can have differencies, crashes of interests,
or even tensions in an ethnic, religious,
political, economic sense and in our lifestyles.
But hatred and violence can never,
in any form play part in our treatment of these.
We believe that in order to keep
social peace conflicts must be solved
by dialogue based on mutual respect
or modus vivendi resulting from compromise.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
there is still a point where confrontation becomes necessary.
Ki kell mondani, hogy ma már nem elegendő
We must say that today it is not enough to condemn
the Nazi and Arrow Cross outrages and murderers,
it is not enough to commemorate the victims.
It is because Jobbik entered parliament with a support of nearly 17 per cent
gained by openly anti-semitic and anti-Roma rethorics,
jutott be az Országgyűlésbe, abba parlamentbe,
the very parliament whose floors were defiled
by the creation of racist and anti-semitic laws before World War II.
The movement using the possibilities provided by democracy,
but refusing its essence and norms
presents a deep moral and spiritual challenge
for every honest Hungarian person.
Ignorance of this challenge or indifference towards it
are grievously harmful and shameful attitudes.
Our commemoration is only authenticated by
our taking up the fight in everyday life as well,
and making it obvious in our closer and wider environment that
we do not tolerate the instigation of aggressive nationalists,
who follow Nazi ideals and
poison the heart and soul of our nation.
The message of the words of Jesus of Nazareth
to the hypocritical Pharisees decorating the tombs of the prophets is obvious.
It is only possible for us to avoid the traps of hypocrisy
if we condemn the mass murders and murderers of the past
and at the same time hold down the hands of the potential murderers of the present,
and silence the mouths of those instigating to hatred.