Lívia Járóka, an MEP of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz, called it an important task to learn from the horrors of the past and firmly reject any form of discrimination, ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day marked on January 27.
Járóka issued a press statement on Tuesday on the occasion of a commemoration held to pay tribute to the Holocaust’s Roma victims in Brussels. She said that the events of the 1940s in Europe had not been without precedent. Járóka said internal anger accumulating over decades and even centuries had fuelled the violence that eventually culminated in the Holocaust.
However, unjust discrimination, exclusion and persecution based on race, language or other characteristics still exist in many forms today, Járóka said. “Our task is to raise our voices in every situation on every instance when someone is seeking to legitimise violence,” she said, warning that any steps taken towards achieving that goal “can be fatal”.
The chief patrons of the commemoration were Járóka and Iván Tamás Kovács, Hungary’s ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg.