The president of Hungary’s Jewish community, Peter Feldmajer, has criticised his government’s “two-faced” policy which has left the country’s Jews “feeling increasing danger”.
The leader of Mazsihisz, the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities spoke of the recent government sanctioned anti-Semitic policies, in a speech to a conference on anti-Semitism co-hosted by B’nai Brith Europe and Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism, at the European Parliament on Tuesday.
Invoking last month’s disputed decision by officials to rename a small square n Gyomro (30 kilometres/20 miles east of Budapest) after WWII leader and Nazi colluder Miklos Horthy, Feldmajer said: “Streets and squares are named after Horthy, who stands as a hero for the people. The Hungarian Jewish people feel increasing danger.”
His comments last week’s announcement by Nobel laureate author Elie Wiesel that he was repudiating the Hungarian Grand Cross Order of Merit, eight years after it was given to him, in protest at the country’s recent “whitewashing” of its WWII Nazi collusion. In a letter to Hungary’s Parliamentary Speaker Laszlo Kover, the 83-year old wrote: “It has become increasingly clear that Hungarian authorities are encouraging the whitewashing of tragic and criminal episodes in Hungary’s past, namely the wartime Hungarian government’s involvement in the deportation and murder of hundreds of thousands of its Jewish citizens.” Other incidents have included the Hungarian government ministers’ decision to participate in a ceremony last month to honour controversial wartime Hungarian MP Jozsef Nyiro, as well as a rise in anti-Semitic activity in the country, which saw the former Hungarian Chief Rabbi verbally abused, in addition to reports that renowned Hungarian actor Jozsef Szekhelyi was described as a “filthy Jew” in the official minutes of a local cultural board meeting in the northern town of Eger.
Also speaking at Tuesday’s conference, Panayote Dimitras of the Greek Helsinki Monitor, a watchdog on hate crimes, drew parallels between the political situations of Hungary and Greece, where the extreme right-wing anti-Semitic Golden Dawn has for the first time gained representation in parliament, amidst the country’s increasingly dire economic outlook. Sourcing surveys showing 80% of Geek and Hungarian populations favouring policies to deport foreign immigrants, Dimitras said “it is no coincidence these are the only countries with neo-Nazi parties in parliament”, invoking the dominance of the far-right Jobbik party in Hungarian politics, which is constantly of spreading libellous anti-Semitic rhetoric in the country.
The wartime Hungarian government is accused of having greatly colluded in the operation to deport Hungarian Jews, a policy which reduced the original pre-war population of 800,000 to 180,000 or 22% of the former community.
Current Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has increasingly come under fire for presiding over a rehabilitation of Horthy’s wartime reputation, as many accuse him of stirring Hungarian nationalist sentiment.

EJP