Orbán, World Jewish Congress exchange views on cancelled Horthy commemoration

The head of the World Jewish Congress has voiced shock over Hungarian plans to hold a commemorative mass in honour of Hungary’s one-time regent Miklós Horthy, which would have coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day and which the organisers cancelled in the meantime, the prime minister’s press office reported. 

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán responded to Ronald Lauder in a letter dated January 25 that “the issue has ceased to exist”, Bertalan Havasi, Orbán’s press chief, told MTI on Monday.

In his letter, Lauder had called the planned event “nothing short of a provocative measure,” adding that it was “truly disturbing” that it is being given legitimacy through the participation of a high dignitary of Hungary.

The World Jewish Congress “was astonished and severely disappointed to learn that Hungarian Parliament Deputy Speaker Sandor Lezsák will speak at a celebratory mass honoring Admiral Miklós Horthy, precisely on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

“The terror that Admiral Horthy, an unabashed anti-Semite, inflicted on the Jewish community of Hungary by allowing them to be stripped of their rights and their humanity, and his role in the deportation and murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews, must never be forgotten and can never be excused,” Lauder wrote.

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Photo: www.erdely.ma

Source: MTI