The March of the Living Held in Budapest

The March of the Living was held in Budapest this Sunday, with participants of the 21st annual walk commemorating the victims of the Holocaust marching from the Shoes on the Bank of the Danube monument to Várkert Bazaar via the Chain Bridge, MTI reported.

Andor Grósz, President of the Association of Jewish Communities in Hungary (Mazsihisz) and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the March of the Living Foundation, said that the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 shook the belief that what happened to the Jews in the mid-20th century was a one-time and unrepeatable horror.

The event began with a speech by Michel Gourary, European Director of March of the Living International, at the Shoes on the Bank of the Danube memorial on the Széchenyi Quay in the 5th district, which commemorates the Jews who were shot into the river during the 1944-45 Arrow Cross terror.

He recalled that between May and July 1944, 437,000 Jews were deported from Hungary to Auschwitz in eight weeks, one of the fastest and most brutal deportations of the Holocaust. This could not have happened without the cooperation of Hungarian officials and the Hungarian gendarmerie, he added.

He also stressed that since 2004, Hungarian state leaders have acknowledged the responsibility of Hungarian state and civil servants, police and gendarmerie during the Holocaust.