Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

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 Publisher & CEO 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.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.