Exiled Hungary Pianist Andras Schiff Fears His Hands Would Be Cut Off If He Returns
Concert pianist Andras Schiff said that he has been threatened with having his hands cut off if he returns to Hungary.
Schiff, who has been an outspoken critic of the right wing government of Viktor Orban and its relationship with the anti-Semitic extremist Jobbik Party, told the BBC in an interview published Monday that “things in Hungary are not very good, to put it mildly,”
Schiff was responding to questions about why he performed his 60th birthday performance in Britain instead of his Hungarian homeland.
He cited the recent erecting of a statue in honor of Hungary’s World War II leader Miklos Horthy, whom he called a “war criminal” for overseeing the deportation of half a million Jews to Nazi death camps.
He said that it is not only the government that is responsible for the current situation in Hungary. ”There’s very little civilian courage. People are scared to speak up,” he told the BBC.
Schiff emigrated from Hungary in 1979, accepted Austrian citizenship in 1987 and became a British citizen in 2001.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
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. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO