Twenty five heritage sites were preselected this year by 19 participating EU Member States, out of which an independent panel selected the nine sites that are proposed for inclusion to the European Heritage Label List. This can bring to thirty eight the number of sites which have received the Label so far.
This year the Dohány Street Synagogue Complex (including a museum and archives, a memorial for Jewish Hungarian soldiers who lost their lives in WWI, a garden used as a cemetery for the victims of the Holocaust as well as the Wallenberg Memorial Park) is among the nine sites recommended for inclusion to the European Heritage Label List. It can be the third Hungarian site besides the Pan-European Picnic Memorial Park in Sopron and the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Budapest.
Besides the Dohány Street Synagogue Complex, Leipzig’s Musical Heritage Sites (Germany), Fort Cadine (Italy), Javorca Church (Slovenia), Former Natzweiler concentration camp and its satellite camps (France and Germany), Sighet Memorial (Romania); Bois du Cazier (Belgium), Village of Schengen (Luxembourg) and Maastricht Treaty (The Netherlands) has been selected by the panel.
The European Commission will formally designate the sites in February 2018 and an award ceremony will be held in March 2018 in Bulgaria.
The European Heritage Label has been launched in order to promote the common European heritage, strenghten European identity and the dialogue between cultures. The Dohány Street Synagogue Complex is the largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest one in the world symbolizing the integration, remembrance and openness to dialogue.
