Hungary-Whitewashing Holocaust Role?

Let's Hope not.
"When plans started to emerge to make 2014 Hungary’s Holocaust memorial year, Jewish groups applauded efforts by the government to address a dark period in the nation’s history. A museum would open at a Budapest railway station where many victims began their journey to Auschwitz; in the centre of the capital, a new statue would honour the half a million Hungarian Jews who perished.



But barely six weeks into the commemorative year, an umbrella group of Jewish community organisations has announced a boycott of all state-organised events. They say that rather than remembering the past, history is being rewritten to absolve Hungary’s Second World War regime of complicity in a genocide that wiped out 70 per cent of the country’s pre-war Jewish population.
And with elections approaching in a political landscape overshadowed by the presence of an openly anti-Semitic party, there are fears that the commemorations are being hijacked by politicians keen to boost their nationalist credentials with far-right voters.
On Sunday, board members of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities – known as Mazsihisz – passed a resolution vowing to stay away from all state-sponsored events marking 70 years since the deportation of more than 430,000 Hungarian Jews to the concentration camps.
“We will not attend the commemorations organised by the government in the future until the position of the government changes,” Peter Feldmajer, the vice-president of Mazsihisz, said. “The memorial year should be an open and real memorial, not whitewash the Hungarian fascist regime.”
The debate over the historical narrative comes against the backdrop of rising anti-Semitism in Hungary, and as the nation prepares for elections in two months. The government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban faces a challenge from the far-right Jobbik party, which took 47 seats in the 2010 elections to become the third-largest group in parliament. Jobbik is known for public vitriol directed at the Roma and Jewish communities, and the party leader has advocated a state register of Jews who pose a “national security risk”."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-holocaust-whitewashed-hungarys-jews-step-back-from-memorial-year-they-say-has-been-hijacked-forpolitical-gain-9117846.html

 

Why am I not surprised ?

I have sobering memories of a visit, with my wife, to Budapest.

http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/6185-budapest-trip-photos-added/?p=263894

Ron

 

Has history taught us nothing.

 

Father András Kun was an unpleasant chap.
He was a member of the Hungarian Arrow Cross. He admitted to at least 500 murders of Jews in Budapest in 1944/45.
He wore his Preist's robes with a pistol belt and holster.
His normal order was "In the name of Christ................FIRE!"
He was finally caught, tried and sentenced to death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A1s_Kun

 

Just discovered this thread. I have a particular interest in World War 2 poetry, and have been reading the work of Jewish Hungarian poet Miklos Radnoti (1909 -1944)
What I can work out, already from 1930, the Hungarian regime banned Jews from certain professions. By the outbreak of World War 2, Jews were made to register to take part in forced labour schemes. Radnoti was thus conscripted for three months in 1940,then ten months in 1942-43. In 1944 , once Germany took control of Hungary, he was serving as a labourer again, road building for the Germans in occupied Yugoslavia.
Due to the advance of the Red Army and the growing confidence of the partisans, the Germans and their allies were driven back towards Hungary. Radnoti was amongst a group of 22 sick Jewish labourers who were too ill and exhausted to work, separated from the main labour columns and shot near the city of Gyor on 9th November 1944. .
Curious to know if the plight of the Jewish conscripted labourers has ever been commemorated in Hungary.

Biography of Miklós Radnóti <small>(1909-1944)</small> - TheBiography.us

 

I recently watched the film 'Walking with the Enemy ' set in Hungary 1944- and 1945. Is available on Youtube. Certainly deals quite extensively with Jews conscripted in to labour battalions, organised by Hungarians, and the role played by Hungarians in the Holocaust. Most notably by the Arrow Cross Fascists, but differing levels of anti-Jewish feeling within Hungarian society is highlighted, along with tributes to those who did whatever they could to assist the Jews.
Do not know enough about the subject to comment on how accurate the film is , but certainly both entertaining and stimulating.

 

An added tragedy to Hungarian nastiness is how late in the war much of it happened.
Good blog, with very good map. (If good is the word. )
Murdered on the Verge of Survival: Massacres in the Last Days of the Siege of Budapest, 1945 – EHRI Document Blog

As Owen mentions, there's also this Charmer.
Even in the history of the Holocaust, Fr. Andràs Kun, Priest with a pistol, stands out...


"In the name of Christ, fire!"

Hanged in September '45. Justly.

 

A Hungarian battalion was the last axis unit to guard Belsen, and remained as the British took over, after the SS Guards were locked up. The British did not liberate Belsen but kept the inmates under lock and key to avoid spreading Thyphus. It took a couple to weeks to treat the inmates and transfer them to the Bergan Barracks.

 

A quibble perhaps but I'd give them credit for "liberating the camp" even though they didn't immediately free the prisoners. Conditions would have improved considerably for the inmates and there was a clear, reasonable, and short term rational for not releasing them immediately.

 

Sorry that was a typo on my part.

 

I don't think you were technically incorrect but the liberators of the camps deserve a lot of respect. I know you didn't intend any lack of respect but thought it worth clarifying.

 

Some great posts appearing.
Von Poop, thank you for the link to the 'Murdered on the Verge of Survival' blog, started reading it but need a lot more time to give it the attention it deserves.
Because watching the movie 'Walking with the Enemy' made such an impression on me, helpful to have some more background on such topics as the Arrow Cross atrocities and the Yellow Star houses.
Still would like to read more about the forced labour schemes that Hungarian Jewish men were forced to take part in, which was organised by the Hungarian authorities.
Have written some of my thoughts about the poet Miklos Radnoti, who died during his third spell on such schemes.
WorldWar2poetry

UPDATE
Have also written a longer piece on Miklos Radnoti
Miklos Radnoti (1909- 1944) – World War Poetry

Still very much work in progress , and might be added to once get to learn more about Radnoti and Hungary in World War 2 generally