08 September 2009
At the 150th anniversary celebration at Budapest’s Great Synagogue, Hungary’s Gordon Bajnai has called on this citizens to fight against rising anti-Semitism in the country. He said it was “sad” that the synagogue had to be protected by police 24 hours a day, and he warned of a repeat of the Holocaust years out of “stupidity, cynicism or eagerness for power.” Hungary had to "quarantine" the political ideas of neo-Nazism and "socially isolate" its advocates who would like to bring back the horrors of the Holocaust today, the Socialist prime minister said. He also praised the consistent contribution of the Hungarian Jews to society.
Budapest's famous Dohany Street Synagogue, the largest such building in Europe and a landmark in the Hungarian capital’s townscape, opened on 6 September 1859. The building served during the Holocaust as the community center of the Budapest Ghetto, where some 17,000 people died of hunger, disease and murder. Today, the shul is a symbol of Jewish revival throughout central and eastern Europe.
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