On the 23rd of August President Łukasz Kamiński participated in the European Memorial Day of the Victims of Totalitarian Regimes, held in Budapest. The host of the Memorial Day was Dr Tibor Navracsics, the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Public Administration and Justice. Member states of the EU were represented by justice ministers and state secretaries.
The official commemorative service began outside the House of Terror Museum, and was followed by joint candle lighting in memory of the victims of totalitarian regimes. The venue was symbolic; the Hungarian House of Terror Museum is one of Europe’s most dramatic museums. Its permanent exhibition is designed to showcase the terror of the totalitarian dictatorships in Hungary, both Nazi and communist. The museum is located in a building where prisoners were tortured and interrogated during the years of communist terror.
After the commemorative service held outside the House of Terror Museum, Tibor Navracsics welcomed the arriving guests at the Parliament Building. This was followed by a conference called Facing the Past, which dealt with the issues of Memorial Day. The opening speech was delivered by the President of the Republic János Áder; President Łukasz Kamiński delivered a short speech related to the prospective project of creating a museum that would document the fate of nations affected by the two totalitarian systems.
At the conference, the attending European institutes of memory are to sign sign a joint declaration in which they confirmed their determination to create an institute to house a joint exhibition that would introduce the history of Europe in the 20th century.
The establishment of the Memorial Day on August 23, was proposed for the first time by the European Parliament in its resolution of 2 April 2009, while the concept itself has been developed in the Council of the European Union, with the significant support of Commissioner Viviane Reding of the European Commission. Memorial Day was finally established during the Hungarian Presidency in the European Parliament, with the support of the Polish and Lithuanian experts. At a June 2011 conference in Luxembourg, the Ministers of Justice of the Member States expressed the need to commemorate the victims of the crimes committed by totalitarian regimes, and ultimately approved the date of August 23. On this day in the year 1939, the foreign ministers of the Soviet Union and Germany signed a secret clause attached to the agreement on non-aggression, which then was called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The pact included an agreement to divide Eastern Europe into spheres of influence.
The first commemoration was held in August 2011, in Warsaw, during Poland’s EU Presidency. It was co-organized by Institute of National Remembrance and Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Paland.
Speech of the Hungarian Minister of Justice