14—Remembering the Holocaust.

On 9 December 1948, the UN adopted a definition of genocide as the intent to exterminate, in whole or in part, any national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Not only was the concept and punishment of genocide included in the Convention, but also the obligation to prevent it.

Of course, genocides and religious wars have been around for centuries, and they have been perpetrated in many parts of the world ever since. The 20th century has witnessed many such horrors, such as the Armenian genocide during World War I, the victims murdered by the Khmer Rouge terror in Cambodia in the 1970s, the 1994 massacre in Rwanda, the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, or the genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar in 2017. It is therefore very important to be alert to the signs and critical of any position that discriminates against any national, ethnic, racial, gender, identity or religious group. 

Former deportees at the site of a former concentration camp with a Star of David on their flag (1945) – "Sept. 1945 between Roding and Cham." [Photo: HDKE 2011.4.4 4F4]

The stumbling block of Holocaust victim József Dráfi in Újpest [Photo: Újpest Gypsy Local History Collection]

April 16 is Holocaust Remembrance Day in Hungary, because on this day in 1944 the ghettoisation and deportation of Jews from north-east Hungary began.The first Holocaust memorial plaque to use the term 'Jew' for the victims was published in 2009. This plaque is located at the entrance to 15 Király Street, where a ghetto wall - now rebuilt - still stands. The wall reminds everyone of the Budapest ghetto and the negative stereotypes that arise from fears fuelled by ignorance and lack of information, but which have unforeseeable historical consequences.

One of the most important goals of the international Roma movement, which emerged in the 1970s, was to gain recognition for the Roma Holocaust. Since 1972, Dustfinger Day has been observed on 2 August, the day of the liquidation of the Birkenau camp. Memorial plaques have been erected in Hungary and a memorial on the Nehru embankment in the capital: a poem by József Choli Daróczi Choli, written in memory of the mass murder at Grábler Lake in várpalota The memorial commemorates the massacre of Choloti Ziroszi's poetry.

In 2005, the European Union agreed to include the LGBTQ community among the victims of Nazi atrocities. The International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 January, is also their day, as the Tel Aviv memorial inaugurated in 2014 also pays tribute to their memory.