Germany , and Hungary . Despite the COVID-19 pandemic , the SMC Archive was opened in July 2021 . The Archivum donated newly digitized collections and relevant duplicate copies from its repositories . The final act of this collaboration was an international expert meeting held in December 2022 , at which prominent archivists , memory scholars , historians , forensic scientists , and activists , together with representatives of victims ’ associations , discussed the importance of archives in justice making and memory work .
The outgoing High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina , Valentin Inzko , imposed changes in the criminal code outlawing genocide denial in 2021 . The United Nations General Assembly recently adopted a non-binding resolution which designated July 11 the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica . ( The only EU-member state which voted against it was Hungary , along with Russia , Belarus , North Korea , and Serbia , among others .) However , by making relevant documentation on human rights abuses , war crimes , and genocide openly and freely available to everyone , and located in the place of the trauma , the SMC Archive remains a permanent and effective tool for combating the culture of societal denial and triumphalism . Today , any relevant discussion on the roots , causes , execution , and memory of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide must start in the archives .
Telling the Global Refugee Story
In the summer of 2015 , an unusually high number of refugees from the Middle East and Central Asia crossed Hungary ’ s southern borders on their way to Western Europe . The influx caught the authorities off guard , and the few refugee camps left in the system filled up very quickly . Improvised transit zones were created at the main railway stations in Budapest , where over 1,000 refugees waited in subhuman conditions for their situation to be solved . While the unwelcoming authorities hesitated and were busy disseminating xenophobic propaganda against the refugees , the local population and civil society organizations offered basic services by distributing water , food , clothing , and other personal effects .
The contrast between the official handling of this refugee crisis and the country ’ s positive recent history of refugee administration , including the welcoming of the UNHCR regional office , and illegal refugees from Romania and the German Democratic Republic in 1989 , and the hospitality towards people fleeing the former Yugoslavia during the 1992-1995 wars could have not been more stark . Not to mention the case of over 200,000 Hungarian refugees , who escaped after the bloody suppression of the 1956 Hungarian revolution by Soviet tanks and found new homes in various countries across the globe .
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Observing Memories Issue 8