“This cemetery tells us about our common history, our common fate and our common deceased loved ones” – said the Minister of Defence Dr. Csaba Hende on Tuesday, November 1 the in the Heroes’ Cemetery, Sátoraljaújhely at the memorial service arranged on All Souls’ Day.

This military cemetery is special, because more than 1500 soldiers of different nationalities have their eternal rest in this place. Most of the dead heroes resting in the cemetery are Hungarian, but there are victims here from all nationalities of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy – Austrian, German, Ruthenian, Polish, Romanian, Slovakian, Croatian soldiers, and Serbian and Russian prisoners of war, too.The erection of wooden crosses was financed partly by the state, partly from public contributions. Later some soldiers, who fell in the fights of Újhely during WW2, were buried in the southern part of the cemetery.

“The name of the cemetery is venerable” – said Péter Szamosvölgyi. The Mayor of Sátoraljaújhely added: “Irrespective of the fact whether they stood on the winner’s or on the loser’s side – I feel that all the soldiers who took up arms upon command and sacrificed their lives in WW1 or WW2 were heroes. They were guided by the respect of their Motherland to the battlefield.”

“The most heart-breaking and poignant question of the great wars, which we keep asking over and over again, is if they were fought ‘in vain’?” – Dr. Csaba Hende put the question in his festive speech. “We all have to go over the way of remembrance in our souls. We had lost so much in the two world wars of the past century, the whole nation, and each family within that. We must remember the fortitude of the soldiers, and that it was not in vain, what happened. We lived through the horrifying twentieth century, its dreadful wars and dictatorships. We, Hungarians were always able to start again even after these tragic events.”

Dr. Csaba Hende emphasized also that after the hard work of one and a half years the Parliament will soon pass a new act, which will settle an old debt: giving a solid framework to the noble mission of the war grave care.

At the end of the commemorative ceremony the participants laid the wreaths and flowers of remembrance at the war memorial of the cemetery and at the soldiers’ graves. Dr. Csaba Hende and Lt. Gen. Zoltán Orosz, the Deputy Chief of the MoD Defence Staff laid wreaths on behalf of the Ministry of Defence and the Hungarian Defence Forces.

(Ministry of Defence; boon.hu)