Local services
The Municipality of the City of Debrecen organised a commemoration and wreath-laying ceremony on the 4th of November 2024, the National Day of Mourning for the Victims of the 1956 Revolution and War of Independence, in memory of the heroic dead of the 1956 Revolution and War of Independence.
The ceremony began with the raising of the flag of Hungary and the lowering of the flag at Kossuth Square, followed by the wreath-laying ceremony of the memorial plaque of László Iván Kovács at the Bethlen Gábor Secondary School of Economics of the Debrecen Vocational Training Centre.
At the next commemoration site, at the headstone in the Debrecen Public Cemetery, Deputy Mayor István Puskás gave a speech. “A few weeks ago, on the 6th of October, we commemorated the fall of the War of Independence and the Revolution 175 years ago and the martyrs of this revolution, and now we bow our heads before the heroes of 1956,” as he put it. He said that Debrecen is the guardian city of freedom, and freedom is a common value and a common cause of the Hungarian nation, which it must fight for from time to time. “It is not by chance that we are the guard town of freedom, because for centuries we have guarded the most important and most sacred ideal of freedom in our souls and in our deeds, and when we are here together now, we are also proving to the memory of our heroes that these ideals live on in Debrecen today, and we share the common value of freedom,” the Deputy Mayor emphasised.
He stressed that we have a responsibility to ensure that the memory of the martyrs of 1848-49 and 1956 is not forgotten, but that we pass on not only their memory, not only their grief, but also the values for which the heroes gave their lives. He noted that the community of those who lived through these events still plays an important role in the work of passing on the legacy. He said that the representatives of the National Association of Hungarian Political Prisoners or the Imre Nagy Society help to pass on the memory of the events of 68 years ago to young people in the most direct way possible by organising unusual history lessons.
The commemoration ended with the wreath-laying ceremony of the memorial plaque of the martyred soldiers at the Kossuth barracks.
Source:debrecen.hu
