The United States is a nation of immigrants...

Because of this, sites that relate to the cultural heritage of Americans - cemeteries, places of worship, and other communal properties - lie in the countries from which our citizens or their forebears came.

And the Government of the United States is interested in the protection and preservation of these sites.

When the Soviet Union dominated Eastern Europe and much of Central Europe, the Congress and the President of the United States established the commission on which I am privileged to serve because of a particular problem regarding Jewish sites in the region.

The United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad was established to identify endangered sites, negotiate agreements with the governments of the region relating to the preservation of the sites, and encourage private funding to restore sites.

Three years ago, the United States and the Republic of Hungary entered into an agreement negotiated by our Commission related to sites in this country.

We then asked the Federation of Jewish Communities for its priority. This site was chosen. This historic cemetery includes a memorial to people killed in the Holocaust without the dignity of a respectful burial or proper resting place. It, thus, combines elements of the heritage of the Jews of Hungary related to the heritage of Americans.

It is one of the great privileges of my life, that I am able to provide the funding that will restore this site to the condition that it would have been in had the fascists not killed most of the people who would have continued to care for it and the communists not repressed those who remained. It honors the memory of all of the Jews of Hungary who have died, as well as just those of Gyongyos.

Last month, I was privileged to have been able to provide the funding that memorialized Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli who became Pope John XXIII at the great Dohany Street Synagogue complex in Budapest. He helped thousands of Hungarian and other Jews to escape the Holocaust as well as promoted Catholic acceptance of Jews as pope.

That project paid tribute to a famous and outstanding Christian leader. This one honors largely anonymous and ordinary Jews. But both have the same essential purpose: recognizing, respecting and celebrating the equal dignity and worth of all individuals, that is the basis of brotherhood and pluralism and that is essential to democracy itself.

Thank you MAZSIHISZ for suggesting this restoration and for managing it as our partner.

Thank you to all who arranged this ceremony and to everyone present for joining me here today. It is an honor to be with you.