Forward 1, Hungary 0
Elie Wiesel
Gal Beckerman June 19, 2012
Elie Wiesel announced today his decision to renounce a Hungarian state award he received in 2004. Hungary has been “whitewashing” its fascist history during World War II, Wiesel said, including attempting to rebury the ashes of a writer, Jozsef Nyiro, a member of the notorious pro-Nazi Arrow Cross, in his native Transylvania.
As Wiesel put it, “I found it outrageous that the Speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly could participate in a ceremony honoring a Hungarian fascist ideologue.”
From what we can tell, an op-ed in the Forward by James Kirchick earlier this month was the only real exposure the botched reburial received in this country. And it appears that Wiesel wrote his letter a day after our story posted. So we hereby take credit for the shaming of the Hungarians!
Kirchick wrote about the attempt by the Hungarian government to bring Nyiro’s ashes to his ancestral village, which is now in Romania, and the refusal by the Romanians to let the ceremony take place.
Wiesel got the message that the Hungarian government now has an extreme revisionist agenda with regards to its collaborationist history: “It has become increasingly clear that Hungarian authorities are encouraging the whitewashing of tragic and criminal episodes in Hungary’s past, namely the wartime Hungarian governments’ involvement in the deportation and murder of hundreds of thousands of its Jewish citizens.”
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.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
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 the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
