The Embassy of Hungary laid a wreath in the Victims of Communism Memorial Ceremony on June 9, 2011. Remembering the victims has become an annual – moving but beautiful – ceremony in Washington, D.C., to salute those who sacrificed their lives for freedom and fought against communist repression in Europe and all over the world.
On the fourth anniversary of the unveiling of the memorial, ordinary citizens and several embassies gathered and paid tribute to the victims of communism and those who still live under the shadow of communism.

VOCMF Chairman Lee Edwards delivering his speech

Hungary, following a bloodless and successful transition, is a proud and loud voice in the promotion of democratic values, freedom and liberty. This very June the Government of Hungary will unveil a statue of President Ronald Reagan on Liberty Square in Budapest, Hungary, facing the U.S Embassy, and a commemorative session of the Hungarian National Assembly will be organized in the Upper Chamber of the Parliament where a US Congressional delegation will be present to honor Reagan’s legacy. As mentioned by several speakers at the ceremony, President Reagan played an immense role in bringing to an end the Communist regime and supporting the fight of millions of Hungarians and others for freedom and democracy.

The Embassy laid a wreath in the Victims of Communism Memorial Ceremony

During the commemoration VOCMF Chairman Lee Edwards and former Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Paula Dobriansky, among others, shared their thoughts about democratic values, fight against repression and paying tribute to the victims. Annette Lantos, chairwoman of the Lantos Foundation delivered a speech in which she addressed the question of freedom and talked about the recent brutalities of the existing communist regimes. She also expressed her wish to preserve peace and prosperity all around the globe. (Please see her remarks below.) An institute bearing the name of his late husband the Hungarian-American Congressman Tom Lantos will be inaugurated in Budapest, also in June. The mission of the Institute is to support human and minority rights in Central Europe. President of the Republic Pál Schmitt will be present at the inauguration ceremony in the Parliament.

Remarks by Annette Lantos at the Commemmoration

Remarks by Annette Lantos at the Victims of Communism Commemmoration

“My Dear Friends,

As always, it is a pleasure and privilege for me to join with you in remembering and honoring the victims of Communism. We live in an age when the attention span of citizens has grown both brief and shallow. With the 24 hour new cycle and an almost inconceivable proliferation of media sources very few people understand the simple truth that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

For me and my husband, that dark period of history when communism claimed the lives of millions of innocent victims. Some of those were friends and colleagues from our native Hungary. Others were courageous freedom fighters who we knew about only through their heroic deeds. And untold numbers of them were simply ordinary men and women who were caught up and crushed by the inevitable brutality of totalitarianism. We have a solemn duty to remember these victims and to remain vigilant and alert to the political evil that engulfed them and that has not yet disappeared from the world.

Whether it is Communist China’s recent harsh crackdown on democracy activists, including the imprisonment of the internationally admired artist Ai Weiwei, or the Cuban government’s refusal to permit the brave blogger Yoani Sanchez to travel to Denmark to accept a prestigious freedom prize, these Communist leopards never change their spots. They are and they remain paranoid, repressive relics who deserve, as President Reagan said, to be left on the asheap of history. And I have no doubt that eventually that is where all of them will end up.

My late husband was an incurable optimist, who would often say in the darkest times, “we are just bending a windy corner of history”. He truly believed that freedom and justice were the birthright of every single human being and he dedicated his life to fighting for these values. But Tom was also a realist. He knew that this victory for freedom was one that each generation would have to secure anew and I am grateful that organizations like yours are working to make sure that the next generation takes up this fight. I salute you for your efforts not only to honor the victims of the past but to battle to prevent new generations from being victimized by this destructive ideology.

I would like to close with the words of my beloved husband that we have adopted as the motto of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice which I am the Chairman of. Tom said “the veneer of civilization is paper thin – we are its guardians and we can never rest.”

Thank you and may God bless you all.”