Hungarian Embassy in Riga organizes conference on Gulag prisoners

RIGA - To honor the memory of communist genocide victims, the Hungarian Embassy in Riga is organizing a conference at the Latvian War Museum today on the Latvian and Hungarian political prisoners and forced laborers who were deported to labor camps in the Soviet Union, BNS was told at the embassy.

During and after World War II more than four million foreign prisoners from 23 different nations, including Latvians and Hungarians, were deported to Gulag forced labor camps. Between 1944 and 1956 approximately 600,000-800,000 Hungarians were sent to and suffered in GULAG-GUPVI camps of the Soviet Union. In this respect, the history of Hungary and Latvia meets.

The Hungarian government declared 2016 as the Year of GULAG Memorial in order to keep alive the memory of the tragedy of those deported.

The Embassy of Hungary in cooperation with the Latvian War Museum is organizing the conference dedicated to Hungarians and Latvians deported to the Soviet labor camps and an exhibition “Hungarians in the Camps of the Soviet Union – 1944-1956” opening on March 21, 2017. Historians from Hungary and Latvia will present different angles of the two nations’ shared history.

These events are Hungary’s contribution to the remembrance of March 25 in Latvia and a tribute to the victims of communism.