The planned statue of a key architect of anti-Semitic laws in the run-up
to the Holocaust in 1930s Hungary was scrapped on Friday after an outcry
from Jewish groups and others.
The foundation behind the planned memorial to
Balint Homan said it has “reversed its decision to erect the statue and
has informed the city hall of Szekesfehervar” in central Hungary.
The life-sized statue of Homan, a minister in
the Nazi-allied Hungarian government before the 1944 German occupation,
had been scheduled to be unveiled on December 29 for the 130th
anniversary of his birth.
But the planned event drew several hundred
protesters — including Washington’s special envoy on anti-Semitism Ira
Forman — to the monument’s building site on Sunday, and on Tuesday the unveiling was postponed.
The Homan foundation, some of whose members
are linked to the radical far-right Jobbik party, has received both
state and municipal funding for the project. The foundation wanted to
honor Homan for his contributions to the city.
The
covered statue base of a planned statue in honor of Balint Homan who as
a Hungarian minister during the World War II era drafted legislation
that restricted the rights of Hungarian Jews and called for their
deportation, December 13, 2015. (AFP/ATTILA KISBENEDEK)
Homan supported calls for the deportation of
Jews from Hungary in 1944 after the Nazi takeover. Around 600,000
Hungarian Jews were later transported to Nazi death camps and murdered.
After World War II, Homan was handed a life
sentence for his role in approving Hungary joining Nazi Germany’s
invasion of the Soviet Union. He died in prison in 1951.
However, a Budapest court in March found there
had been a lack of evidence for his conviction, after which
Szekesfehervar City Hall approved the statue plan.
Balint Homan (YouTube screen grab)
The right-wing government of Prime Minister
Viktor Orban has sometimes been accused of cosying up to Jobbik and
glossing over Hungary’s role in the deportation of Jews, despite vows of
“zero tolerance” for anti-Semitism.
Orban had denounced the planned statue.
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