Hungarian far-right activists on the march. (AP/MTI, Tamas Kovacs) (AP/MTI, Tamas Kovacs)
Hungary far right

The Wiesenthal Center condemned Hungary for “another blatant attempt to honor and glorify the perpetrators of the Holocaust.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center (WSC) has condemned a far-right commemoration in Hungary of a World War II battle in which speakers lauded a wartime pro-Nazi Hungarian leader.

A report on the feol.hu website said a Waffen-SS veteran who was scheduled to speak at Saturday’s memorial in the city of Szekesfehervar did not attend for health reasons.

The Wiesenthal Center said the event was “another blatant attempt to honor and glorify the perpetrators of the Holocaust.”

More than 400,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland over a period of two months in 1944, where most of them perished.

Last year, international criticism caused a foundation to cancel plans to erect a statue in Szekesfehervar of a Holocaust-era minister who helped draft anti-Semitic laws.

The Wiesenthal Center’s Mark Weitzman said authorities’ failure to condemn the event, considering that Hungary is currently chairing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, was “an exercise in political and historical hypocrisy.”

By: AP