No-one should turn against his own compatriots

BUDAPEST - Hungarian President Janos Ader said Sunday that no-one should turn against his own compatriots in the name of ideological or political convictions.

"This should be repeated over and over again,"  Ader told an audience of invited dignitaries at a ceremony marking the opening of a new memorial park in honour of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Budapest's Jews during World War II.

"We have to look after our country together,"  Ader said.  "The obligation to act morally is a tradition which lives in Hungarians and Wallenberg's acts in Budapest added to this tradition."

The Hungarian government declared 2012 as Raoul Wallenberg Year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Swedish diplomat. The new memorial park is in the grounds of the Dohany street synagogue in Budapest.

Deputy foreign minister Zsolt Nemeth said that anti-semitic phenomena in Hungary should be prevented and that the state should guarantee the safety of all its citizens. Only the law is capable of protecting the individual, he said, adding that  "It was the duty of society that Hungary should be a country which unconditionally protects all of its citizens. In this, the Hungarian government does not recognize compromise."

Israeli Ambassador to Hungary Ilan Mor said that the Holocaust must never be forgotten.  "The truth must always be recognized and spoken,"  he said.

The 32 year-old Wallenberg arrived at the Swedish Embassy in Budapest in July 1944, four months after German troops invaded the Central European country and began the deportation to Auschwitz of over 400,000 Hungarian Jews, mainly from the countryside.

The envoy immediately set about issuing thousands of Swedish protective passports to Budapest Jews convincing the Hungarian authorities to accept them as "family documents", and hence able to save the life of several persons.

Wallenberg received the  "Righteous Among the Nations"  award from Israel and is an honorary citizen of the United States and Canada as well as of Hungary. Several statues and memorials bearing his name can be found in the city while a street is named after him close to where he established one of several  "safe houses"  where Jews were able to find refuge.

"In the eyes of Hungarian Jews, Raoul Wallenberg is the greatest hero,"  said Gusztav Zoltai, director of the Association of Jewish Communities in Hungary.

"We must preserve Raoul Wallenberg's unforgettable memory and legacy: humanism, heroism, and his indestructible respect for humanity,"   he added.