An international conference on the life of the famous Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, entitled „Face to Face with Evil” was hosted in Prague on November 5. Hungary was represented by Zsolt Németh, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Speaker of the lower chamber of the Czech legislation, Miroslava Nemcová was the chief patron of the event, which took place in the building of the Czech House of Representatives.

Parliamentary State Secretary Zsolt Németh gave a speech at the conference, and he also gave an account of the events of the Wallenberg Year in Hungary. He pointed out that Raoul Wallenberg examplified humanism, and his struggle could be compared to the Biblical fight between David and Goliath.

”I took the opportunity to express my thanks to Madame Speaker Nemcová that she supported including János Esterházy among the Victims of Communism on the memorial grave in Prague. It binds together Wallenberg and Esterházy, who was a leading Hungarian minority politician in inter-war Czechoslovakia, that both of them fought against national socialism and fascism and both of them had to die as the victims of communism. This demonstrates markedly that the character of the two types of dictatorship are identical. ” -  State Secretary Zsolt Németh declared following the conference.

Politicians, diplomats and experts attended the conference, and they all extolled the courage of Raoul Wallenberg. Madame Speaker Miroslava Nemcová claimed that the estimate that Wallenberg could save as many as one hundred thousand lives was plausible. The achievement of Raoul Wallenberg has been widely recognized in the world on the occassion of the one hundredth anniversary of his birth; the Hungarian Government has celebrated 2012 as a Wallenberg Year.

(Prime Minister’s Office)