Top White House Adviser Wears Nazi Collaborator Medal
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Dan Friedman February 14, 2017
Image by Via LobeLog
To defend it, the White House sent out Deputy Assistant to the President, Sebastian Gorka. He accused those who had attacked the omission of trying “to twist” the statement.
On February 12, Eli Clifton noted on LobeLog — a blog of foreign policy experts — that Gorka had been photographed wearing a medal from a viciously anti-Semitic group of Hungarian Nazi collaborators in World War II.
The vitezi rend was established by Miklos Horthy in 1920. Horthy was an avowed anti-Semite whose group was officially labeled by the State Department as being “under the direction of the Nazi government of Germany.”
On Gorka’s PhD dissertation he lists his name as “Sebestyén L. v. Gorka.” This is a reference to his grandfather’s title from Horthy. Though it’s not clear that the title is in any way heritable, Clifton quotes Eva Balogh, founder of the news analysis blog Hungarian Spectrum and former professor of Eastern European History at Yale University, as saying:
Many supporters of the Horthy regime were enamored by the Nazis and Hitler and the ‘knights’ were especially so. Put it that way, after 1948 one wouldn’t have bragged about his father being a ‘vitéz.’ Lately, however, especially since 2010, it has become fashionable again to boast about such ‘illustrious’ ancestors.
Apparently it’s fashionable again to wear anti-Semitic medals for inauguration day.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
