A contested history

After the Jewish history tour I wondered what the official stance on Hungary’s involvement in the deportation of Jews in WW2 was. In our wandering around Budapest we came across a living protest in Liberty Square. This square was the scene of brutal oppression in Budapest in the late 1800’s. On one side of the square is the last remaining communist statue in the city…a monument to the Soviet Red Army.

And then a newer statue, erected by the government, under cover of darkness, following huge public outcry and protests, in 2014. It is meant to be a tribute to the victims of WW2 but it has been savagely received with accusations of attempting to rewrite the events of the Jewish Holocaust to relinquish any blame on the Hungarians.The monument has the imperial eagle of Germany coming down on Archangel Gabriel who represents Hungary. It has been argued that it symbolises how the Germans were the ones responsible for the deportations and slaughter of 600 000 Hungarian Jews.

According to an opinion piece I found online in The Daily Caller, Laszlo Karsai, a well-known historian said “People like to hear the lie that Hungary, the Hungarian people, were always innocent.” Former Prime Minister, Gordon Bajnai calls this statue the “falsification of the past,” and he also claims that “the government wants to control the past in order to rule in the future.”

Over the years an ongoing protest installation has evolved with people bringing in momentoes of victims of the halocaust. According to material posted in front of the statue…in many languages…Hungary was a faithful ally of Hitler’s Germany during WW2, being the first in 1940 to join the Axis powers. The Hungarian people welcomed the Nazis army with bouquets. Back in the 1920’s Hungary was the first European country to pass anti-Semitic laws.

Protestors argue that the statue is pandering to the far right, the advocates of nationalism, racist, xenophobia, and whitewashing the memory of Admiral Horthy who governed Hungary at this time.

“The protestors which to initiate dialogue with society, carefully exploring the past, in order to facilitate honest reckoning with old crimes and processing the lessons learned”.