“Our commitment must be to remember the victims who perished, respect the survivors still with us, and reaffirm humanity's common aspiration for mutual understanding and justice.”
-- Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust
Slovakia Commemorates Holocaust Remembrance Day
27.09.2012
Slovakia remembered the victims of the Holocaust in national commemoration events on 9 September.
Since 2001, Slovakia has commemorated the victims of the Holocaust and of racial violence on 9 September as the "Memorial Day for Victims of the Holocaust and of Racial Violence."
The Slovak Parliament chose 9 September because, on this day in 1941, the Slovak Government at the time introduced 290 repressive laws (the "Jewish Codex") by which the process of Jewish deportations was initiated and which resulted in the killing of over 70,000 Slovak Jews.
This year, Prime Minister Robert Fico and Education Minister Dušan Čaplovič attended a wreath-laying ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial in Bratislava along with representatives of the Jewish community in Slovakia. During his speech Fico highlighted the importance of Holocaust remembrance, adding that it also provides an opportunity for appeals for peaceful co-existence between nations, ethnic communities and religious groups today.
Additional commemoration events included the reading of the names of persecuted and murdered victims of the Holocaust in the historical building of the Slovak National Theatre, as well as the revealing of a "virtual memorial" containing the names of victims by the Museum of Jewish Culture.