Collective guilt unacceptable, says minister

Addressing a commemoration marking the 72nd anniversary of the start of the deportation of ethnic Germans from Hungary, Economy Minister Mihály Varga said no nation or ethnic group should be exposed to collective guilt, and any government that does so commits a heinous crime by turning against its own citizens. 

After the second world war, Hungary deported 200,000-220,000 ethnic Germans to Germany on the basis of collective guilt.

Speaking in Békásmegyer, a northern neighbourhood of Budapest, on Sunday, Varga said the post-WW2 powerholders were “guilty of sacrificing so many Hungarian citizens on the altar of their political interests … They expelled from their native land those whom they should have protected,” he said.

Varga said the number of German schools has increased fivefold and the number of pupils in them threefold over the past few years. Now close to 200,000 Hungarian citizens declare themselves as belonging to the ethnic German community, he added.

Photo: MTI

Source: MTI