Thousands of people, among them politicians, public figures and diplomats, joined the March of the Living, a procession marking Hungary's Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Budapest on Sunday, Hungary’s news agency MTI reported
The torchlight procession started with the blowing of the shofar at the old Jewish quarter downtown and continued all the way to Parliament.
The event was organized by the March of the Living Foundation, the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (MAZSIHISZ), the Justice Ministry and the Budapest City Council, in cooperation with civil and youth organisations.
Istvan Tarlos, the mayor of Budapest, said it was a protest against all events of genocide, including the one that had happened in 1944 "to the shame of us all."
He said the Holocaust was also a tragedy for Hungary, causing an irreparable loss.
Addressing the procession at Parliament, National Resource Minister Miklos Rethelyi said that Auschwitz, where several hundreds of thousands of compatriots perished, has become inseparable from Hungarian history.
"Auschwitz has become a metaphor of unjustifiable acts," he said.
He noted that the rounding up of Jews in ghettos started in Hungary on April 16 in 1944. During the period of May 15 and July 8, a total of 437,402 Hungarian Jews were deported, most of them to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
In a video message, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, said that respect for human dignity was the best and most lasting way to ensure peaceful coexistence and mutual respect among people who belong to different nations, cultures and religions.
He said it was "our responsibility to never forget about the victims of the unspeakable tragedy, as well as pay respect to the memory of all those who fought against dictatorship, terror and oppression."