People gathered outside the "House of Terror" museum in Budapest today to light candles in commemoration of the victims of totalitarian dictatorships. Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice Bence Rétvári and Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Committee for Youth, Social, Family and Housing Affairs Péter Ágh participated and held speeches at the ceremony.

This is the first Remembrance Day on which the victims of communism and the Holocaust are remembered at the same time, the State Secretary emphasised, adding that designating such a day in Europe has been of paramount importance both for Hungary and Central Europe. Mr. Ágh stated that dictatorships destroyed the 20th century and this is why it is important to "bow our heads" before all of the victims of those regimes.

In 2011, following a Polish-Hungarian-Lithuanian initiative, EU justice ministers established August 23, the day the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed in 1939, as the Remembrance Day to commemorate the victims of totalitarian regimes. The European Day of Remembrance was observed for the first time in 2011.

(Ministry of Public Administration and Justice)