Dr. Andor Grósz: All Hungarians alive today are responsible for ensuring that the atrocities never happen again, under any circumstances…

„After 80 years, the perpetrators of the mass murders are no longer here, and no Hungarian alive today is responsible for the actions of their ancestors. But all Hungarians alive today are responsible for ensuring that the atrocities never happen again, under any circumstances.

Every Hungarian living today, the entire Hungarian nation, has a responsibility to learn from our history, to recognize the forces and the steps that set hatred in motion and led it down the path to tragedy.” said Dr. Andor Grósz, president of Mazsihisz, in the Upper House of the Parliament on April 16. Below is the full text of the speech.

Esteemed gathering of remembrance,

It is with sadness and regret that I stand here, in the upper house of the Parliament, where every corner, every wall, every padded seat and this pulpit are steeped in the history of Hungary. The terrible part of Hungarian history that took place here, more than eight decades ago, in this very hall, where Dr. Immanuel Löw, the world-famous rabbi of Szeged, represented Hungarian Jews from 1926 until October 1940, when he was removed from here under the anti-Semitic laws. Deported from the Szeged ghetto in 1944, the dying 90-year-old scholar was removed from the Auschwitz-bound cattle car in Budapest and allowed to die here on Hungarian soil, in his beloved homeland, unlike hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens who were murdered in a foreign land.

I stand here in this room, which has witnessed the rise of anti-Semitism, which has been embodied in the creation of anti-Semitic laws, "laws" that have known neither law nor justice, which have humiliated, plundered, and marginalized hundreds of thousands of Jewish citizens of this country. To a place from which they were only one step away from the 'final solution' of mass murder, which they did 80 years ago today, the genocide began! On this day we remember this Hungarian tragedy.

I stand here in this Chamber, thinking of those Jewish members of the Upper House who represented the best of Hungarian industry, engineering and mining, who were excellent economists and legal scholars, but all this did not save them from deportation, from death marches, from Auschwitz. Neither they, nor hundreds of thousands of others, who were not members of the upper house, but who were, as far as their own talents and abilities allowed, hard-working citizens of that Hungarian homeland, valuable, proud members of the Hungarian nation, whose decision-makers, driven by the most despicable passions, anger and greed, cast them out and delivered them into the hands of murderers, did not escape.

The tragedy of the Holocaust is not just the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, not just their deaths, not just the suffering of survivors whose lives were crippled by the loss of loved ones, not just the horror of immense pain passed down through generations. The tragedy of the Holocaust is also the loss of the future, of prosperity, of thriving, of a blooming future. The loss that the Shoah has caused and continues to cause to Hungarians is still felt today, and cannot be quantified or measured. After all, how could one count how many things, how many mothers and grandmothers, how many fathers and grandfathers, how many workers and peasants, how many teachers, how many creative artists, engineers, doctors, Nobel Prize-winning scientists Hungary lost, whose political elite and bureaucratic machinery of the time sent children and capable people to their destruction?

The flourishing Jewish religious life, which had made the Jewish spirituality of the Carpathian Basin so rich, was also destroyed. The representatives of the various Jewish religious movements disappeared, our schools and institutions have been emptied and disappeared, our synagogues covered in silence, and in the streets where once the thousands of bustling voices of human life filled the air, there was only silence. Where once hundreds of synagogues were filled with worshippers, in rural Hungary, there is hardly a community left to say a prayer for the victims, and most of the hundreds of synagogues have been torn apart by the bricks by greedy hands.

Every human being is precious, every human life sacred and worth preserving. There are those among us who, by virtue of their talent, diligence, or simply by good fortune, can achieve more. With them, with their achievements, we measure the success of a nation. I am convinced that I do not need to list for you how much the Hungarian people, Hungarian culture, Hungarian literature, Hungarian architecture, Hungarian science, the Hungarian economy or Hungarian sport owe to Hungarian Jews.

I stand here saddened because it was in this very room that the high clergy of the Christian denominations, renouncing their own principles, made their speeches in support of the anti-Semitic laws. After the Holocaust, all those denominations finally did some introspection and expressed their regret for the role they had played in the marginalization of the Jews. This introspection, this understanding of this tragic chapter in history, is now facilitated by the educational programs that have become an indelible part of our entire education system, but it would be good for everyone, every village and town, every community, every family, to carry out an introspection.

Ladies and Gentlemen! In the words of the Talmud, "Sin is not hereditary, sons are certainly not responsible for the sins of the fathers, but they are capable of acquiring merits whose glory will be shared by the fathers." Today's generations are not responsible for the actions of their forefathers, but they are largely responsible for ensuring that the actions of their forefathers are not repeated. They are responsible for ensuring that what happened in the past is honestly passed on to future generations.

After 80 years, the perpetrators of the mass murders are no longer here, and no Hungarian alive today is responsible for the actions of their ancestors. But all Hungarians alive today are responsible for ensuring that the atrocities never happen again, under any circumstances.

Every Hungarian living today, the entire Hungarian nation, has a responsibility to learn from our history, to recognize the forces and the steps that set hatred in motion and led it down the path to tragedy. This is particularly important today, when we see that the flames of anti-Jewish hatred have once again flared up. It is feared that if Jews and non-Jews do not unite to curb the hatred, not only Jewish life but our entire civilization could once again be set aflame. Now is the time to show the real value of the fine phrase: NEVER AGAIN. Now, at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise, society must show that it knows what it must do to defend the dignity and lives of the innocent. Now is the time for everyone to prove that they will not hesitate to do whatever is necessary to fight exclusion and anti-Semitism. This is what all responsible people must recognize.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I stand here before you in this hall steeped in history, in awe. Proud, because the murderers did not achieve their goal, the Jews could not be exterminated, and they could not be erased from Hungarian history. Today, here in this hall, we proclaim with our presence the lives of our ancestors and their terrible deaths. Even if in much smaller numbers, Jews still live in Hungary today - and there is a thriving Jewish community life. Those who tried to take the lives of our ancestors have failed. And just look around the Rumbach synagogue! Where a few years ago, the ruins were dominant, today the beautifully renovated interior glorifies the greatness of the Eternal and the triumph of human energy. Just as the Rumbach was revived, so Hungarian Jewry was revived, new Jewish communities were created, new synagogues were opened, Jewish institutions were established, new organizations were formed. Eighty years after the Holocaust, we have not recovered from the loss caused by the Holocaust and we will never recover from it, but it can be said that there is a flourishing Jewish life in Hungary again, and there are Jewish communities in Israel originating from here, forming a living link between the two countries.

This is especially important now, when Israel and the Jewish people are under unprecedented attack, when eight decades after the Holocaust, innocent blood is being shed, when babies and old people are being murdered or taken from their homes. When the flame of anti-Semitism is once again burning high, unprecedented high, around the world. Now is the time to resist it, now is the time to put a stop to it. That much we have learned from history.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

As I stand here before you, I am strengthened by the feeling that my grandmother, grandfather and 43 other relatives who were murdered during the Holocaust are behind me. And standing beside me could be tens of thousands of my fellow Jews, with their own murdered family members behind them. And standing here, with all our respect and eternal gratitude, would be the rescuers, the small group of the brave and the decent who managed to remain humane in a sea of cruelty and ruthlessness. We owe them the lives of many, not only lives, but also hope for a just world and faith in humanity.

In memory of our martyrs, let me quote the words of André Schwartz-Bart:

How to mourn your death,
How to follow your coffins,
For you are a handful of stray ashes
Between heaven and earth.

In their honor, on the 80th anniversary, I will place a memorial stone in Auschwitz, the largest Hungarian cemetery.

May their memory be blessed!
Zichronam Livracha