A monument to Jewish forced laborers who were murdered during the Second World War was found desecrated in the northwest Hungarian town of Balf late last week, according to a report in Politics.hu.
According to the report, three stone tablets comprising the memorial were found smashed on Friday, prompting a police investigation as well as a condemnation from the Prime Minister’s Office.
Last month, Prime Minister Victor Orban pledged to combat anti-Semitism in his country, during a joint press conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Budapest.
Orban said that the security of the local Jewish community "will be fully guaranteed by the Hungarian state.” The prime minister’s remarks came on the heels of a wave of incidents that have left the Hungarian Jewish community feeling threatened by anti-Semitism – including Orban’s recent praise for Admiral Miklos Horthy, the country's Nazi-collaborating WWII-era leader, and a poster campaign targeting Jewish businessman George Soros, that drew anti-Semitic sentiments across the country.
Orban had previous called Horthy, who enacted strict anti-Jewish laws and deported thousands to their deaths, an “exceptional statesman.” The Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary (MAZSIHISZ) strongly condemned Orban’s statement, as did World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder, who said: “The horrors that Admiral Horthy inflicted on the Jewish community of Hungary by stripping them of their rights and their humanity, and his role in the deportation and murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews, can never be excused.”
During Netanyahu’s visit, Andras Heisler, the president of the Federation of the Hungarian Jewish Communities (MAZSIHISZ), said that in modern Hungary it is still possible to “launch a total propaganda campaign, whose language and visual tools revived in our minds the bad memories of the past,” referring to the Soros campaign.
“One can argue about the intent of the campaign, but it became unacceptable for me for one thing: the Jews of Hungary started to live in fear.”
“A responsible Jewish leader cannot keep silent about that,” Heisler said. “Neither can a responsible head of state.”
Vandalism against Holocaust memorials is a common problem in eastern Europe, with recent incidents recorded in Bulgaria and Ukraine in the past week and a half.
