Hungary Town Won’t Name Square for ‘Quisling’ Leader Miklos Horthy
Image by getty images
A town on the southeast outskirts of Budapest has reversed a 2012 decision to name its main square after Hungary’s Nazi-allied World War II leader Miklos Horthy.
According to the Hungarian news agency MTI, the mayor of town of Gyomro said it had been a “mistake” to rename “Freedom Square” in honor of Horthy, who ruled Hungary from 1920 to 1944. He apologized to “anyone hurt by it,” MTI said.
The local council has voted that from June 1 the square will simply be known as “Main Square.”
Naming the square for Horthy had resulted from a motion by a local councilor from the far-right Jobbik party and had sparked local protests.
The state’s distortion of its Holocaust history, including the role of the Horthy’s regime, are among the reasons being offered by the country’s Jewish organization for boycotting official events marking the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust in Hungary.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
