BUDAPEST (WJC) — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has told Jewish community leaders that he would build a controversial Nazi occupation monument despite their opposition.
Orbán presented his firm position on Wednesday, April 30, during a meeting with leaders of Mazsihisz, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary, according to media reports. Mazsihisz believes the monument of an eagle attacking an angel whitewashes the prominent role that pro-Nazi Hungarian governments had in the murder of more than half a million Jews during the Holocaust by presenting Hungary as a mere victim.
The Jewish umbrella organization pulled out of government-led activities in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of Hungary earlier this year and said it would not attend the unveiling of the statue at Budapest’s Freedom Square at the end of this month, pending talks with the government on replacing it with an alternative monument. The World Jewish Congress supported this decision.
However, during the meeting with Orbán the PM reportedly said there was “no room for maneuvers” on the design. Mazsihisz President András Heisler told Hungarian media that he had had a “frank discussion” with Orbán that day but did not elaborate.
On Tuesday, April 29, Orbán published a personal letter defending the monument. It was addressed to Katalin David, a 92-year-old lecturer on art and a member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts. In his letter, the prime minister – who recently won a third term in national elections – reiterated his government’s recognition of widespread collaboration with the Nazis on the part of the Hungarian governments during World War II, but said the fact that hundreds of thousands of Jews were deported to the German death camps would not have happened without the occupation.
“In my view, what we Hungarians could have done, we have done. We have apologized, although we know that collaboration with the perpetrators of genocide cannot be forgiven. We have made reparations, although we know full well that what has happened cannot be atoned for. But at the same time we cannot bear a responsibility that is not ours to bear. And for this reason we must also state clearly that without the German occupation there would have been no deportations, no rail wagons and no hundreds and thousands of innocent lives lost,” Orbán writes in his letter to Dávid.
On Sunday, András Heisler expressed “shock” at the recent decision of the Holocaust Memorial Center, a government institution established in 1999, to cooperate with the newly established Veritas Historical Research Institute. In January, the government appointed another controversial historian, Sandor Szakaly, to head Veritas. Also in January, Szakaly said in an interview that the 1941 deportation and subsequent murder of tens of thousands of Jews was an “action of the immigration authorities against illegal aliens.”
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Preceding provided by World Jewish Congress