It was an honor to partner with the Communauté Israélite de Genéve and co-organize the wonderful concert by the Black Oak Ensemble, especially because I was thrilled to learn about the story that the group found the inspiration for its first album, Silenced Voices, in a bookstore in Budapest. I was honored to have the opportunity to contribute to this commemoration, and touched to see the exhibition “Hidden Childhoods”.
Congratulations to Desirée Ruhstrat, Aurélien Fort Pederzoli and David Cunliffe, together the Black Oak Ensemble for their amazing performance in Geneva. The ensemble’s album SILENCED VOICES is a deeply emotional program dedicated to mid-20th Century Jewish composers – including Hungarian Géza Frid, Pál Hermann and Sándor Kuti – most of whom lost their lives during the Holocaust.
Just a couple of days ago on 10th December, the international community celebrated Human Rights Day, a day to commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 recognizing the importance of securing human rights for all. Its adoption was a direct consequence of the horrors of World War II. Since then – sadly – we yet have seen a number of threats to human rights.
This year we also celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I commend the role of young people in bringing human rights to life and changing the world for the better. As former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said: “Young people should be at the forefront of global change (…) development and peace.” Young people today might have an imminent impact through social media. In the past, they might have had their mark on history decades later – like Anne Frank. Much has been written about Anne Frank and the exhibition tells us more. A lasting contribution of her diary is the day to day reporting of the hardships, challenges, deprivations and small joys of her life in hiding. More than seventy-five diaries of different young writers have surfaced from the wreckage of the Holocaust. Some wrote as refugees, others in hiding or inside ghettoes. They wrote in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Russia, and my own country, Hungary.
The Government of Hungary is deeply committed to the promotion and protection of human rights in general and to the fight against racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism in particular. The President of Hungary apologized for the state’s role in the Holocaust. In 2001, we established along with the Day of Remembrance, the Holocaust Museum in Budapest. We promulgated in 2012 our new constitution, recognizing Hungarian Jewry as an inseparable part of the Hungarian nation. Our Parliament passed some of the most far-reaching provisions in Europe to punish Holocaust denial, hate speech and the display of hate symbols. We established a zero-tolerance policy on anti-Semitism and effectively banned paramilitary groups that were intimidating Jewish citizens. We introduced Holocaust education in the national curriculum. We devoted resources to the reconstruction of synagogues, Jewish cemeteries and built the first new synagogue in Budapest in 80 years. We raised the pensions for Holocaust survivors.
My government also stood up as a staunch supporter of the state of Israel in the EU and the United Nations. Last year in the UN we were the first to present a joint statement in the Human Rights Council condemning anti-Semitism and worked hard to gain the support of a number of countries.
In today’s challenging times, it is our duty to ensure that everyone pays its fair share be it in the political, diplomatic or cultural sphere to raise awareness of universal human rights principles, to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and to make sure that voices never be silenced again.