Along with the hosts, President Laszlo Solyom and Prime Minister Ferenc Gyrcsany, the ceremony was attended by 18 heads of state and two prime ministers of European countries, the kings of Spain and Norway, and leading officials of the European Commission and NATO.
The Declaration of Freedom, adopted on this occasion, pays tribute to the heroes of the revolution and recalls the historic messages of the revolution - that freedom is invincible and that individuals and peoples are born free and aspire to freedom all their life.
Other Hungarian cities were also remembering the revolution which broke out in Budapest on 23 October 1956 and which was put down by Soviet tanks on November 4. The fate of Hungary as a Soviet satellite was sealed until the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. During the revolution, 2,800 people were killed and more than 12,000 were wounded, and some 200,000 fled to Western countries.