BUDAPEST (JTA) — A member of Hungary’s Jobbik Party promised a new extermination of “vermin” in a forthcoming “cleansing” of the Hungarian nation.
He made the remark during a mass demonstration Sunday organized by the ultranationalist party commemorating the rule of Adm. Miklos Horthy, who authorized the deportation of some half-million Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz during the Holocaust.
A crowd estimated at 5,000, as well as 450 to 500 uniformed members of the banned Hungarian Guard organization deployed in military formation, sought to march through downtown Budapest. Only the non-uniformed participants were allowed to proceed, however, after the Guard agreed to withdraw under police orders. There were 14 arrests.
The march was followed by a public meeting in Old Buda adjacent to the scene of the final, murderous resistance of the Nazis during the 1944-45 siege of Budapest by the Red Army that ended the Hungarian Holocaust.
Horthy’s rule commenced 90 years ago. It was characterized by the infamous “White Terror,” most of whose victims were Jews, followed by an intensifying series of anti-Jewish legislation and culminating in the Holocaust.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
