English
Magyar
Commemoration of 2007
10. June 2007.
Photographed by: Gábor Dékány
Article of Andrea Szabó in the county's newspaper "Nógrád Megyei Hírlap" (in Hungarian):
"There is no louder scream, than silence":
Balassagyarmat. On the 10th of June commemorators has gathered again in the sadly beautiful art-relic jewish graveyard of Balassagyarmat, to remember the days 63 years ago. As Radnóti, the famous poet wrote, those were the days, "when men had fallen so beneath their nature that they, unbidden, for their lust would kill" (translation by Zsuzsanna Ozsváth). Almost 2700 jewish citizen were deported from Balassagyarmat and its area, and most of them died in the notorious deathcamps. Bianka Kovács and Péter Barna, students of the local Kálmán Mikszáth High School and Technical College, recited poems of Radnóti and Imre Kertész, then József Bauer, Chairman of the Jewish Community of Balassagyarmat greeted the commemorators, among them Mr. István Lombos, Member of the Parliament, and Mr. János Turai, leader of the Jewish Community in Rétság (that's a mistake of the journalist, he is the leader of the Jewish Community of Vác - ed.), and our Slovakian co-religionalists.
- When we remember to our beloved, who were destroyed, we shall not forget those, who try to reanimate the fanatic ideas of the nazism. Nowadays majority of the hungarian society remains silent, just as they remained silent six decades ago. However the famous poet, Babits said: "Among the guilty, an accomplice who is dumb". On 16th of April, all the hungarian parties accepted the so called Zero-tolerance proclamation on the Holocaust Memorial Day. But that is not enough. Our society needs to unite against the racist philosophy". - József Bauer stated.
After his speech, Mr. Lajos Medvácz , mayor of Balassagyarmat, spoke to the survivors and their relatives, and also greeted those who are not members of the jewish community, but came back year after year, to participate on this commemoration.
- Jewish past of Balassagyarmat is a part of the universal jewish culture. In the past our city had a magnificent orthodox synagogue, and also a very famous Yeshiva, which served as a cultural and spiritual guidence, and its impact is still very much perceptible in this city - the mayor said-, who also promised behalf of the city government, that he will do whatever he can, to maintain the peaceful co-existance between the "people of the New- and the people of the Old Testament", because as Pope John Paul II called the jews: "my older brothers".
Rabbi Joel Péter Totha spoke about the unfinished dreams, plundered homes, lovers, who were torn apart, and the empty nests of the families.
- We feel the absence of the children who were born, and those, who were unable to born, every day. Our praises are pealing, because "silence is the loudest scream of all". Our spiritual need and also our responsibility is to remember, which also serves as a protest against forgetting the unforgettable. This way we can embrace our past as a part of the jewish history. - the Rabbi said, and then Cantor Anatolij Klavanszkij and the commemorators prayed the ancient jewish prayer, Kaddish.
The Holocaust Commemorational Day was finished in the old tabernacle where Béla Majdán, dreamer the Museum, held a presentation about the jewish community of Balassagyarmat to the relatives and commemorators."
Published by Andrea Szabó
