Hungary remembers Holocaust victims amid calls for tolerance

Participants of the March of the Living, which commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, cross the River Danube on Chain Bridge in downtown Budapest, Hungary, Sunday, April 16, 2017. The annual event marks the 73rd anniversary of the beginning of the Hungarian holocaust, during which some 600 thousand Jewish Hungarians were deported to Nazi death camps. (Bea Kallos/MTI via AP) (The Associated Press)

Participants of the March of the Living, which commemorates the victims of the Holocaust, walk along the Pest embankment of the River Danube in downtown Budapest, Hungary, Sunday, Apr. 16, 2017. The annual event marks the 73rd anniversary of the beginning of the Hungarian holocaust, during which some 600 thousand Jewish Hungarians were deported to Nazi death camps. (Bea Kallos/MTI via AP) (The Associated Press)

BUDAPEST, Hungary – Thousands of Hungarians have taken part in a march remembering the 550,000 Hungarian Jews who died during the Holocaust.

The March of the Living on Sunday was held on Hungary's national Holocaust Memorial Day, which marks the mass detention and deportation of Hungary's Jews in 1944.

Speakers called for tolerance and facing up to the truth.

Hungarian Jewish writer Gabor Szanto said: "No nation bears collective guilt for the past, but we all have a personal responsibility for the present and the future."

This was the 15th year the march has been held.

Near the end of the event, amateur runner Peter Hajdu began an eight-day run covering 420 kilometers (260 miles) to Auschwitz, Poland. Many of Hungary's Jews who died during the Holocaust perished at the Nazi death camp in Auschwitz.