Education and remembrance
- Compulsory Holocaust education in public schools: the observance of the Holocaust Remembrance Day in public schools was introduced by the first Orbán government in the 2000-2001 school year. The education of Holocaust is compulsory and is an integral part of the national curriculum: 1) for 5th-8th graders the Holocaust in Europe and Hungary, 2) for 9th-12th graders the path to the prosecution and genocide of Jews. Several civil society organizations (eg. USC Shoah Foundation, Yad Vashem Institute, Zachor Foundation for Social Remembrance, Jewish Community Roundtable) are engaged in Holocaust education, which enables the multi-faceted and comprehensive representation of the topic.
- Holocaust Memorial Committee: The Hungarian Government set up a Holocaust Memorial Committee headed by the State Secretary in charge of the Prime Minister’s Office, MP János Lázár. The Committee is responsible for preparing the commemorative events marking the 70th anniversary, in 2014, of the deportation of Hungarian Jews. The Committee is to provide a forum through which representatives from civil society, ethnic groups, religious life, education, diplomacy and a range of public institutions can channel their ideas and proposals towards the preparation of the Hungarian Holocaust Memorial Year of 2014. The role of the Hungarian State is not to steer the course of discussions within this body, but to bolster an inter-societal dialogue among various stakeholders interested in the same goal: commemorating the tragedy of the Holocaust together in the interest of preventing anything similar from happening again. The legitimacy of the Committee follows also from the breadth of its membership: in addition to the largest Jewish communities, several Jewish cultural organisations, the Ambassadors of Israel, the United States, Germany and Austria, the Committee may also count several ministers and state secretaries, in addition to leaders of the Holocaust Documentation Centre and Memorial, the Hungarian Scientific Academy and the National Roma Self-Government (ORÖ) among its members. In order to express its commitment to the concept of remembrance, the Hungarian State is to join the group of countries that support the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation. Throughout the Memorial Year, numerous high-level diplomatic exchanges will take place, directed programmes will tackle the issue of deported children and new initiatives will honour the memory of rescuers at schools by unveiling commemorative plaques. The Phorrajmos, the Roma Holocaust, will also gain equal acknowledgement through the dedication of a number of events and countrywide programmes to the memory of the Roma victims.
- Wallenberg Year: In 2012, the Hungarian government honored the 100th anniversary of the birth of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, in a series of commemorative events nation-wide. The government worked hand-in-hand with partners from Sweden, Israel and the United States to highlight Wallenberg and other rescuers’ personal heroism in standing up against the Nazi regime.
- Recognition of János Esterházy. The Hungarian government continues to honor the memory of János Esterházy, who was recognized with the “Courage to Care” award by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in New York on November 4, 2011. Esterházy, an ethnic Hungarian politician, was the only representative in the Slovak Parliament who refused to vote for the deportation of Slovak Jews in 1942.
- Task Force on Holocaust Education, Hungary is a member of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research and considers the Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust binding on itself, which, among others, pledges to promote education about the Holocaust in schools, universities, and communities and to encourage it in other institutions. Based on a 1997 agreement with Yad Vashem, more than 500 Hungarian teachers have benefited from the opportunity to take summer courses at the Holocaust Memorial Center. The cooperation was renewed in May 2012, and the training now includes reformed methods of teacher training in Holocaust education, morality, aesthetics, tolerance and fight against racism.
- Establishment of the Holocaust Memorial Center and Memorial Day – The first Orbán government established the Holocaust Memorial and Documentation Center, which plays a key role in examining, and educating the public about, the overall history of the Holocaust. The same government declared April 16 “National Holocaust Remembrance Day,” held as a public commemoration every year, including in schools.
- The Alliance of Jewish Faith Communes (MAZSIHISZ) welcomed Parliament’s action in 2010 to allow for an expedited naturalization process for people of Hungarian descent, including Jewish Hungarians who had lost their Hungarian citizenship for any number of reasons. MAZSIHISZ called the new Act a “historic restitution” for Holocaust survivors and their descendants.
- Two hundred Hungarian young people traveled to Auschwitz on April 8 to participate in the 26th remembrance programme organized by the March of the Living.
- In 2000, the National Assembly designated 16 April as the Day of Remembrance for Hungarian Victims of the Holocaust. The first such memorial event was held in 2001. This year official Remembrance Day events took place in Budapest at the Holocaust Memorial Center and the Danube Promenade Holocaust Memorial, and also in the cities of Hódmezővásárhely and Pécs. There was also a memorial concert at Budapest’s House of Terror Museum.
