Candles were lit and the Danube-facing side of Parliament plunged into darkness on Saturday to mark the 90th anniversary of the 1932-1933 famine-genocide in Ukraine (Holodomor), Parliament’s press office has said.
The Ukrainian victims of communist terror were commemorated with candles placed on the steps of Parliament and in Budapest’s Petőfi Square, the office told MTI. The commemoration which also marked the 19th anniversary of the adoption of a solidarity resolution condemning Stalinist crimes and declaring that the 1932-33 famine was a genocide was initiated by Liliana Grexa, spokesperson of the ethnic Ukrainian minority in parliament.
The statement noted that Hungary’s parliament was among the first to recognise the Holodomor as a genocide when it adopted its solidarity resolution on November 26, 2003. Members of the Ukrainian minority also commemorated the genocide at the Holodomor memorials in Szeged, in the south, and Nyíregyháza, in the east.