A Viktor Orbán was being twisted by the minute plan to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust. His Government has spent months publicizing acts organized throughout the year, which can also serve to neutralize the repeated accusations of not doing enough to tackle the rise of anti-Semitism. Far from it, the exercise of memory has become - and 2014 just started - in a tense anger on the responsibility of Hungary in the murder of half a million of its citizens in 1944.
The conflict began in late January with a statue. Or rather, a draft statue populist right-wing government intends to place in the capital to remember " the victims of the n**i occupation " as defined Orbán. In the sketch, an eagle with outstretched wings cast on the Archangel Gabriel. In the cast of characters, the brutal Third Reich attacks a innocent Hungary.
Historians and representatives of the Hungarian Jewish community at the Monument are an effort to rewrite history. Telling the story of Hungary that had nothing to do with the n***s, and after the occupation could not do anything to avoid deportation to Auschwitz a half million Hungarians. The Orbán government is exposed to absurd to remember the victims of the Shoah without the support of the country's main Jewish organization, the Mazsihisz federation, which decided on Sunday to boycott the program of events unless the Executive dispose of, inter alia the idea of ​​erecting the statue. It is expected that the prime minister give an answer this week.
Before there had already been very loud protests, like Randolph L. Braham, an eminence in the study of the Hungarian Holocaust. Professor Emeritus, University of New York showed their outrage at the " cleansing campaign in history held in recent years " to " absolve Hungary for the active role he played " in the Holocaust. His parents and many members of his family were killed by the n***s. As a survivor and historian, returned two weeks ago a high distinction of the Hungarian state and asked to withdraw his name from the library in memory of the Holocaust Center of Budapest. Says in an open letter to the monument is the straw that broke the camel "a cowardly attempt to distract attention from the involvement of the regime [ Miklos ] Horthy [ the ruler between 1920 and 1944 ] in the destruction of the Jews (...) ", and remember that the German occupation " not only was unopposed, but was generally applauded. "
This gesture must have been hurt on the Orbán government, which recognized two years another Holocaust survivor, author and Nobel Peace Elie Wiesel ago, returned another decoration for similar reasons. Only one day later, and during the International Day in memory of the genocide, the Hungarian President János ÃÅder, had recognized the responsibility for their country in the deportations. It was a clear and unusual, like the Hungarian ambassador to the UN, said that speech: " We apologize to the victims because the Hungarian state was guilty in the Holocaust."
This apparent contradiction want to make a monument criticized for exonerating the role of Hungary in the Holocaust while apologizing for the state's role in the slaughter -is not uncommon in the government and its Fidesz party, which controls two -thirds of Parliament. So Orbán speaks of " zero tolerance" with the rise of anti-Semitism whenever he can, but does not condemn the glorification of Horthy ally of Hitler, passed anti-Semitic laws and is ultimately responsible for the deportations, or appointing a director of a historical institute Veritas, a teacher who in January called " police action against foreign " deporting Kamenets- Podolskii when thousands of Jews were sent, and in 1941, to Ukraine and then were killed. Days later, Sándor Szakály apologized for his words and remain in post.
Two months before the elections, the debate may be a nod over Fidesz - polls - headed voters of the extreme right Jobbik, the third political, racist and anti-Semitic force. But it is a broader phenomenon. " Hungary has launched a review of the history of Fidesz in a while," says the historian Julián Casanova, who knows the country and that, for six months a year, teaches at the Central European University in Budapest. Moreover, not only is isolated statues or symbols: "It's a cultural operation that extends to the textbooks and in related media," says Casanova.
Tags: Hungary, Nazi, occupation, rewrites