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Old June 22nd, 2009 #21
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Bringing Sandor Kepiro to trial

Jun. 22, 2009

This week's visit by Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Banjai is an excellent opportunity to focus on one of the most important and interesting cases of a Nazi war criminal who can still be brought to justice. I am referring to Dr. Sandor Kepiro, who served as a gendarmerie officer during World War II and was among the key organizers of the mass murder of at least 1,250, but probably as many as 3,000 men, women and children (mostly Jews, but also Serbs and Gypsies) in the Serbian city of Novi Sad on January 23, 1942.

Until now, Israel has done relatively little to press Hungary to prosecute Kepiro, so Banjai's visit might well be the last opportunity of its kind for the government to send a clear-cut message to the Hungarians that their failure to bring Kepiro to justice is incomprehensible and unacceptable.

The Kepiro case has special significance for several reasons. First and foremost is the scope of the massacre in Novi Sad, which was the largest single action of its kind against Jews in Serbia during the Holocaust, and besides the murders carried out by Hungarian troops in Kamenetz-Podolsk, was the worst case of the mass murder of civilians carried out by Hungarian forces during World War II. Another important point is that if Kepiro is brought to trial in Budapest, he will almost certainly be the first Hungarian Nazi collaborator to be prosecuted since the country became a democracy. Like all the post-communist states of Eastern Europe, Hungary conducted many trials of Nazi collaborators in the immediate aftermath of World War II, but none since the transition to democracy. This would be particularly significant in a country like Hungary, which is only beginning to honestly confront its crimes during the Holocaust, which included mass murder.

THERE ARE ALSO several unique aspects to the Kepiro case which add to its significance. To the best of my knowledge, it is the only case of Holocaust crimes carried out by the forces of a country allied with Nazi Germany, in which the perpetrators were actually prosecuted by their own government in the course of World War II. In December 1943, the 15 officers who organized and carried out the mass murder in Novi Sad were put on trial in Budapest. Not for murder, but rather for violating the code of honor of the Hungarian forces, since the operations they carried out in the Voivodina province had not been approved by their superiors. All of them, including Kepiro, were convicted and sentenced either to death or to lengthy prison terms.

The convicted officers, however, never served their sentences since shortly after the end of the trial and before they could be implemented, Nazi Germany occupied Hungary and pressured the Hungarians to cancel the convictions and the punishments. Thus Kepiro's identity and participation are not in doubt, having already been duly confirmed by a Hungarian court. In fact, Kepiro himself admits his participation in the Novi Sad operation, but simply denies having committed any "war crimes."

In that context, a fascinating aspect of Kepiro's behavior in Novi Sad came to light during his 1944 trial. When Kepiro was briefed on his assignment before the roundups and murder took place, he asked for the orders in writing. Already a lawyer, he apparently immediately recognized their immorality and consequent illegality. His superior responded, however, that orders of this kind were only transmitted verbally, and Kepiro carried them out loyally.

Ironically, this behavior prompted the Hungarian court to reduce his jail sentence, but in theory they should have done the opposite, since Kepiro was, in essence, the worst type of Holocaust perpetrator, an intelligent and educated professional who clearly understood that what he had been told to do was totally reprehensible, yet did it anyway. He was obviously a person who was more concerned about his alibi than about the fate of his innocent victims, and thus someone undeserving of any sympathy.

ON AUGUST 1, it will be three years since I initially notified the Hungarian authorities that Kepiro was alive and living in Budapest. (After the war, he had escaped to Austria and from there to Argentina, where he lived for 48 years.) At that time, the prosecutors assured me that if he had committed war crimes (which obviously was the case), they would immediately implement his original sentence, but six months later I was informed that this was not possible since a Hungarian court had cancelled his conviction.

Instead, prosecutors launched a new investigation against Kepiro, which in theory should have long ago resulted in a trial. But the wheels of justice for a Hungarian Nazi war criminal turn incredibly slowly and without external pressure it appears very doubtful whether Kepiro will ever be punished for his crimes. In the meantime, he is conducting an active legal battle against his prosecution and giving numerous interviews in which he protests his innocence, while admitting his presence in Novi Sad on January 23, 1942.

In these days in which the nationalist extremist Magyar Garda march in the streets of Hungary in black uniforms with symbols reminiscent of the wartime fascist Arrow Cross, and the racist and anti-Semitic Jobbik party garnered 15 percent of the votes in the recent elections for the European Parliament, the fate of an elderly Hungarian Nazi war criminal may not seem particularly pressing. The fact is, however, that precisely by mustering sufficient political will to bring to justice people like Kepiro, the government will be sending an unequivocal and necessary message to Hungarian society and especially to the ultranationalists that the days of Arrow cross terror, anti-Semitism and racism are long gone never to return and that democratic Hungary will not countenance their revival.

Now if only Prime Minister Banjai's hosts in Jerusalem will make sure to deliver the message loud and clear.

The writer is director of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1245184900393&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull
 
Old June 24th, 2009 #22
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Hungarian Prime Minister visits Yad Vashem, warns against extremism

http://ejpress.org/article/37481

23/Jun/2009 16:13

JERUSALEM/BUDAPEST (EJP)---Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai, who is on a two-day official visit to Israel, on Tuesday toured the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem which commemorates the six million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II.

His visit marks the 20th anniversary of the reestablishment of diplomatic ties between Hungary and Israel following the collapse of the Communist regime in 1989.

Bajnai also was set to hold talks with Palestinian Authority leaders, but Szollar said they were canceled due to unspecified “extraordinary events.”

Hungary's Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai on Sunday called upon all democratic forces to reject extremism.

In an interview with the Hungarian news agency MTI before his visit to Israel, Bajnai said that the recent European Parliament elections made it clear that the extreme right forces have gained ground all over Europe, including in Hungary.

He said that Hungarians should take it as a warning sign that the extreme nationalist Jobbik party has won nearly 15 percent of votes and acquired three seats in the EU elections.

He said that his government resolutely rejects Jobbik's ideology and messages. Jobbik's views endanger Hungarian democracy more than anything else over the past twenty years, he added.

The Prime Minister called the recent desecration of a Holocaust memorial in Budapest "shameful, dismal and base."

The government supports a bill seeking to ban Holocaust denial in Hungary, he added.

The incident happened when unidentified perpetrators placed pig's trotters amid 60 pairs of cast iron shoes commemorating the Jewish victims who had to take their shoes off before Arrow Cross gangs, the Hungarian version of Nazis, shot them into the Danube.

The government supports a bill seeking to ban Holocaust denial in Hungary, Bajnai added.

The prime minister confirmed that his government supports the bill seeking to ban Holocaust denial in Hungary.
 
Old August 10th, 2009 #23
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Jobbik calls for return of notorious Gendarmerie

August 10, 2009

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/08/...of-gendarmerie

BUDAPEST (JTA) -- Hungary's ultranationalist Jobbik Party called for the reconstitution of the infamous Hungarian Gendarmerie.

The Gendarmerie served as Hungary's main law enforcement agency, responsible for the deportation of Jews and Roma, or Gypsies, during the Holocaust.

Jobbik leader Gabor Vona told demonstrators at an Aug. 3 rally in Budapest that the Gendarmerie was needed to enforce law and order on the Roma in the countryside. He also declared war on financial crime and advised “international bankers” objecting to that “to leave the country.”

About 150 party activists and sympathizers attended the rally in front of the Ministry of Finance and the Banking Alliance to protest an “international financial conspiracy” as well as “Gypsy crime” allegedly threatening the Hungarian nation.

It was held one day after an unprovoked attack on an isolated Roma home that left a woman dead and her daughter seriously injured. Police say it was part of a recent series of racially motivated attacks perpetrated by hooded death squads that has claimed six lives and caused many injuries.

Vona’s call for the revival of the disbanded Gendarmerie was made following a court order banning the paramilitary Hungarian Guard, a Jobbik offshoot, which had been modeled after the murderous Nazi Arrow-Cross movement, another instrument of terror deployed in Hungary during the Holocaust.

Rally participants flew the red-and-white striped flag of the Arrow-Cross and one sign advised “bankers” to “be afraid.” Unlike some previous rallies, there were no violent confrontations nor Hungarian Guard uniforms on display.
 
Old October 1st, 2009 #24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KMRATHELL View Post
I am curious why Hungary is not highlighted more by the White community with the obvious movement from within to combat the Jew and its inherent cancerous effect on White society. Hungary has upset Israeli "news commentors" Some Jew commentators seem to be trying to shift the focus on gypsies. Does anyone closer than I to Hungarian politics or life have any insight on this? Much positive stuff has already been posted in this thread.
I guess it doesn't get any closer than me on these forums, so let me answer from the best of my knowledge.

First of all, this is a tiny, mutiliated, insignificant country we're talking about, about 33% of its size a century ago. Having a population of 10 million, even in the middle of Europe, just doesn't hold much sway over any international trends.

Secondly, it still has a lot of traditional enemies in its neighbourhood, namely Romania and a miriad of tiny Slavic nations. Not on the pretentious levels of current international politics of course, but on a social and cultural level. People from these states, people with roots from these states, or people who sympathise with these states will not be eager to report or cheer on the rise of the Hungarian national spirit, and what the public attitude towards Gypsies is, is really nothing unique east of the Iron Curtain.

All in all, we're poor like church mice, but at least we'll not fall... for a very long time.
 
Old November 7th, 2009 #25
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Default Hungary's 'forgotten' war victims

Hungary's 'forgotten' war victims

Saturday, 7 November 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programme...nt/8347146.stm

The deportation in 1944 of thousands of Hungary's civilians to the Soviet Union, although on a similar scale to the deportation of its Jewish people to the death camps, receives little official attention in Hungary, as Nick Thorpe reports.

Arpad Kovari stands at the top of the steps at Nyiregyhaza railway station, nearly two metres tall, scanning the faces of the new arrivals from Budapest. He hides his disappointment well as I shake his hand.

He was hoping for a whole television crew, not a lone reporter, to listen to his tale of what he dares to call the Hungarian Holocaust: the deportation of some 600,000 Hungarians to Soviet labour camps after the Second World War and the death of at least 200,000 in captivity.

His father was one of them.

"My dad was a ticket collector," Arpad begins, as we drive through the traffic-lit streets of this autumnal city. He worked on the same railway on which I have just slid comfortably into Nyiregyhaza, washing a paprika omelette down with coffee and fresh orange juice.

On 1 November 1944, the Soviet army captured the town. The next day, all able-bodied men were ordered to their workplaces, to start clearing the ruins.

Arpad was three months old, the youngest of four sons. His father was 45.

Arpad never felt his father's arms around him again.

Many graveyards The workers were rounded up and marched to the next city, Debrecen. Between 2,000 and 3,000 of them - 4% of the population.

“ For 20 years, Arpad Kovari has been trying to persuade the Hungarian state to create a day of remembrance for the Hungarian Holocaust ”

There they were loaded into cattle wagons, which rolled into Romania in the bitter cold of the last winter of the war. The good boots and warm winter muffler worn by Janos Kovari, Arpad's father, were taken away.

According to fellow prisoners, he died of pneumonia in a transit camp in Focsani, in eastern Romania, three or four months later. There are no written records of his death, nor of his final resting place.

Nyiregyhaza is as rich in tombs as it is in apples. There are nine graveyards.

A small ceremony takes place each year on 2 November in the North Cemetery. Thanks largely to Arpad's efforts, "an unknown Hungarian civilian" was exhumed three years ago in the city of Baltsi in Moldova, and reburied here with honour.

Most of the Hungarians from Nyiregyhaza ended up in a work camp in Baltsi, those who survived the journey. And there most of them died - of malnutrition, over-work or disease.

Their remains lie scattered at the far end of a cemetery, and on open ground elsewhere in the city.

As the Eastern Front moved west, the Russians rounded up civilians in each town and village in Hungary. Budapest fell on 13 February 1945.

One hundred thousand men and women were taken to the Soviet Union from there alone.

Suppressed pain During the ceremony in Nyiregyhaza, an elderly lady in a purple coat cannot stem her tears.

She was 15 when they took her father away. She remembers her mother pleading with him not to go, remembers him turning down sandwiches saying he would not be gone for long.

And how for three years she went with her mother to the railway station, always expecting that he would step down off a train and raise his hand.

And how eventually her uncle came back. He escaped one camp, walked barefoot for months, was caught, put in another camp, and was finally granted an amnesty in 1948.

"Don't wait for your husband any more," her uncle told her mother, bluntly. "I buried him with my own hands."

For 40 years, Hungarians could not speak about the missing; Soviet domination ruled out any discussion, so the pain incubated.

With the fall of communism, it burst out. It is still trying to find forms of expression.

'Hill of human bones' For 20 years, Arpad Kovari has been trying to persuade the Hungarian state to create a day of remembrance for the Hungarian Holocaust, not in competition with the Jewish Hungarian Holocaust, he explains, but alongside it.

In the last letter of rejection from the president's office, he was told that civilians are all lumped together as "victims of communism" and remembered each year on 25 February.

Hungary also has days of remembrance for the Jewish and Gypsy victims of the Holocaust. The calendar is sinking under the weight of remembrance, one can almost hear the officials say. Let us keep a few days in the year when our memories are blank.

Crows flock over the North Cemetery, a flypast of birds, not military jets, joining their rough voices to the national anthem, above a planet littered with flowers and candles.

Three upright rails and the wheels of a railway carriage are mounted beside the grave of the unknown civilian, in honour of the railwaymen who never returned.

Back in his living-room, Arpad's three-year-old granddaughter, Jofie, brings me wooden elephants and antelopes to admire and stands quietly listening to our conversation.

On the table, Arpad has arranged photographs that he took on his trips east in search of the lost Hungarians.

"Maybe that one is your dad," Jofie tells him, wanting so much to be helpful and pointing to a group of men who are holding a cross on a small hill in the city of Baltsi. "That hill," says Arpad, "is made of human bones."
 
Old December 16th, 2009 #26
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Hungary's Supreme Court upholds ban on paramilitary group

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/s...ary-group.html

Budapest - The Hungarian Supreme Court upheld on Tuesday a ban against the Hungarian Guard, a controversial paramilitary group linked to the nationalist party Jobbik, the state news agency MTI reported. "Through its activities, the group has overstepped the boundaries of freedom of expression," the court said after reaching its decision.

"We acknowledge, but do not accept the verdict," said Jobbik leader Gabor Vona, who was instrumental in setting up the paramilitary group.

Jobbik and representatives of the Hungarian Guard said they intend to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The nationalist group has been battling the courts since it was found guilty a year ago of violating the human rights of Roma villagers during an intimidating rally protesting what it calls "gypsy crime."

The ruling was upheld by a court of appeal in July. Nevertheless, a week later, Jobbik held a mass rally in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, at which party leaders and hundreds of supporters donned the banned black, white and red uniform.

Legislation introduced in November gave the authorities the power to impose a fine of 263 dollars on anyone wearing the group's uniform in defiance of the court ruling.

Jobbik won 15 per cent of the national vote in the European Parliament elections on June 7, securing three of Hungary's 22 seats after campaigning on an anti-Roma, Eurosceptic platform.
 
Old December 24th, 2009 #27
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Default Teens charged in "beating" of Budapest Jew

Police charged two men in the assault of a Jewish man in the old Ghetto district of the Hungarian capital.

A third man was also arrested Wednesday, as investigations into last summer's assault in Budapest continue.

After the incident, Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai called on the police to be more vigilant against anti-Semitic attacks. In Hungary, violence targeting individuals for reason of their assumed racial, religious or national origins is punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment.

The attack against an Orthodox Jewish man took place near the famous Dohány Street synagogue at dawn on June 30. It was carried out by three hooded assailants who allegedly asked the victim first whether he was Jewish. The victim, 27, suffered light injuries from several kicks and punches.

Both men charged by the police are in their late teens.

Chief Rabbi Somló Köves of the United Jewish-Hungarian Religious Community commented after the assault that public safety in the capital had been seriously undermined by the current upsurge of neo-Nazi agitation. Both the ruling Socialist government and the dominant conservative Fidesz parliamentary opposition have condemned the incident.

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/12/...f-budapest-jew
 
Old January 31st, 2010 #28
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Hungary tries again to outlaw Holocaust denial

January 31, 2010

http://jta.org/news/article/2010/01/...locaust-denial

BUDAPEST, Hungary (JTA) -- Legislation to make Holocaust denial punishable by three years’ imprisonment has been introduced by the minority Hungarian caretaker government.

A quick passage of the long-delayed proposal into the statute books could take place before the April 11 parliamentary elections, said Attila Mesterházy, the prime ministerial candidate of the ruling Socialists, if the opposition parties agree.

This is very unlikely to happen, in the view of authoritative political observers here, but the proposal may well pave the way for such law reform by the next Parliament following April's elections. The government’s latest of several attempts to make Holocaust denial illegal was introduced on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Ceremonies last week to honor the Holocaust dead, who included some 600,000 Hungarian Jews, were attended in Budapest by Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's deputy prime minister and foreign minister. Lieberman declared that the most effective approach to countering the current aggressive rise of anti-Semitism in Hungary would be through the legislative process.

Meanwhile, some of the most fanatical neo-Nazi movements of Europe are organizing their annual “Day of Honor” in Hungary to mark the last stand of the German Nazis and their Hungarian supporters against the Soviet Army at Buda Castle on Feb.11, 1945.

The organizers, including the Hungarian National Front, have neither sought nor received official permission to hold an event this year, but they have reportedly said they assume that the rally would take place as usual at Heroes’ Square in the capital, Budapest.
 
Old February 9th, 2010 #29
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Default Hungarian Holocaust victims' kin seek reparations

Hungarian Holocaust victims' kin seek reparations

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chic...parations.html

The heirs and next of kin of Hungarian Holocaust victims are seeking reparations from the Hungarian railroad company.

The complaint describes plaintiffs as "Hungarian Jewish victims of the Hungarian Holocaust or their heirs or next of kin" who are suing defendant Hungarian National Railroad for, among other things, "knowingly providing the trains for delivering 437,000 Jews to their deaths in Auschwitz," and looting plaintiffs' possessions and valuables.

"The defendant knew exactly what it was doing. It was using nearly all of its trains day and night to transport people one-way to Auschwitz. The trains were empty as they rattled along the tracks back to Hungary. Without the trains provided by [defendant], hundreds of thousands of Jews could not have been transported to Auschwitz," the complaint states.

The complaint also states "Even though discussion of money is necessarily crass in the context of the unspeakable evil that was inflicted upon the Holocaust victims, nevertheless the law is powerless to do anything other than to obtain financial restitution."
 
Old February 22nd, 2010 #30
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Hungary parliament mulls legal ban on Holocaust denial

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1151549.html

Hungary's parliament voted on Monday in favour of making Holocaust denial a criminal offence, punishable by up to three years imprisonment.

The law was passed in a final vote with 197 in favour, 1 against, and 142 abstentions.

It had been proposed by Attila Mesterhazy, prime ministerial candidate of the governing Hungarian Socialist Party.

A motion by the centre-right opposition party Fidesz to extend the law to cover the denial of other crimes committed under the Communist regime was rejected by 178 votes to 146, with seven abstentions.

The law, which is due to come into effect in 30 days, was passed on the final session of parliament until after general elections that are due to be held in April.

New legislation is subject to review by Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom, who has the power to return it to parliament for reconsideration.

Fidesz, whose lawmakers abstained in the final vote, is far ahead of the Socialists in opinion polls and is widely expected to form Hungary's next government.

Some 450,000 Hungarian Jews are thought to have perished during the closing months of the World War Two at the hands of the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross Party, backed by Nazi Germany.
 
Old March 18th, 2010 #31
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Default Mystery over Israeli aircraft causes political squall in Hungary

Mystery over Israeli aircraft causes political squall in Hungary

http://www.politics.hu/20100318/myst...all-in-hungary

Hungarian Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai has asked ministers to provide immediate information concerning a press report about a recent flight by Israeli aircraft to Hungary, government spokesman Domokos Szollar told MTI on Thursday.

The government spokesman said Bajnai expects immediate information from the ministers of foreign affairs, defence and transport.

Magyar Nemzet daily, quoting a source without naming it, carried a report with accompanying photographs that two Israeli reconnaissance planes with the appearance of civilian craft had crossed Hungary's airspace on Wednesday.

The paper said that two planes of the Israel Air and Space Force (IASF) approached the runway of Budapest's international Ferihegy Airport twice but continued their flight without landing.

Israeli Ambassador Aliza Bin-Noun told MTI that the aircraft were not spy planes but performing routine tasks the kind of which had taken place on previous occasions, too.

The planes had received permission from the National Transport Authority (NKH) to perform their usual routine tasks. As usual, Hungary's Foreign Ministry was also involved in the official procedure, she said.

The ambassador said she had not been informed about the details of the mission, including its nature, purpose and exact date. In such cases, she said, the embassy's task is limited to asking permissions from the authorities.

In addition to Budapest, the routine mission also covered Varna in Bulgaria, Bin-Noun said.

The ambassador said that it was no accident that the news had appeared in [right-leaning] Magyar Nemzet, and that enemies of Israel could be behind the story.

NKH communication official Aliz Szabo told MTI that the authority issued the transit licence for the Israeli planes under preliminary consultation with the Foreign Ministry, "in line with the law on air traffic," Szabo told MTI.

The authority, however, declined to answer questions pertaining to the exact purpose of the mission, the type of aircraft, the departure and the destination of the flights, and whether they had landed in Hungary or carried passengers.
 
Old March 21st, 2010 #32
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Default Holovita: Perge Ottó válaszai Karsai László kérdéseire

Holovita: Perge Ottó válaszai Karsai László kérdéseire

Előzmények (időrendi sorrendben):

- Karsai László elfogadta Perge Ottó kihívását - történészek vitája a "szentséges" holokauszt kérdésében
- Perge-válasz Karsainak: "Nem kell elfogyasztanom a cipőmet" (I. rész)
- "A náci Harmadik Birodalom gengszter-állam volt" - Karsai László viszontválasza Perge Ottónak


Örömmel olvasom, hogy Karsai László ellenzi az úgynevezett holokauszt „tagadását” tiltó jogszabályt. Az én állítólagos tudatlanságomat illető megjegyzéseit figyelmen kívül hagyom, annál is inkább, mivel én meg őt tartom tájékozatlannak (és persze elképesztően elfogultnak), pontosabban úgy vélem, nem olvasta a vezető revizionista történészek műveit.

http://kuruc.info/r/9/56576/
 
Old March 28th, 2010 #33
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Holocaust victims, heirs sue 5 Hungarian banks at US court

http://english.mti.hu/default.asp?me...&newsid=268524

Budapest, March 27 (MTI) - A group of Holocaust survivors and heirs filed a lawsuit in Chicago on Thursday against several banks, including banks based in Hungary, demanding compensation of more than 2 million dollars.

According to the plaintiffs, the National Bank of Hungary, the Erste Group Bank, the MKB Bayerische Landesbank and OTP Bank or their predecessors participated in the Holocaust, they were accomplices and instigators by appropriating the assets of Jewish victims.

The affected banks in Hungary told MTI on Saturday that they had not yet received a statement of claim and were therefore unable to react.

The plaintiffs, who call themselves "Holocaust victims of bank theft" in the document submitted to the Illinois Northern District Court, also demand criminal compensation on top of the 2 million dollars plus interest.

According to the claim, the banks appropriated the funds held in the accounts of Jewish Holocaust victims, as well as jewellery, art objects and securities stored in their security safes.

In February this year, a similar lawsuit was filed against Hungarian state railways MAV, demanding compensation for the company's involvement in deporting Jews during WWII. The plaintiffs in that case, who are mostly descendants of Holocaust survivors living in Israel and the US, demand compensation worth a total of 240 million dollars. Based on nine years of research, they claim that MAV provided its carriages "being fully aware" that these would be used to transport 437,000 Jews to the gas chambers in Auschwitz between March and October 1944.

Head of the Hungarian Jewish federation Mazsihisz Peter Feldmajer said earlier that "no legal action can be brought against MAV on moral grounds," adding that it is the Hungarian state, not one company that is responsible for compliance in the murders and theft of Jewish posessions during World War II.
 
Old April 9th, 2010 #35
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Hungarian Jews Concerned About National Elections

(Lubavitch.com) Hungary's Jewish community is keeping a wary eye on this Sunday's national elections, in which a right-wing extremist group is expected to garner an unprecedented number of votes.

"We're talking about a party not yet represented in Parliament that could now become the second largest bloc in the government. People are very concerned about it," said Lubavitch emissary Rabbi Boruch Oberlander, who, with his wife Batsheva, has spent the past 21 years working to revive this Holocaust-decimated community.

http://lubavitch.com/news/article/20...Elections.html
 
Old May 18th, 2010 #36
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Jobbik: an extreme form of the politics of identity

The advance of the far-right in Hungary’s elections shows that zombie politics can potentially make a big impact in public life today.

The massive electoral triumph of the right-wing Fidesz party in yesterday’s elections in Hungary has been overshadowed by the electoral breakthrough of the radical nationalist Jobbik movement. The success of this backward-looking, chauvinist party, which has gained seats in the Hungarian parliament for the first time, suggests that zombie politics can potentially make a significant impact on public life today.


Western observers make the mistake of depicting the success of Jobbik as symptomatic of the recent rise in support for far-right parties across Europe. Jobbik is presented as a Magyar version of France’s National Front, or as an East European equivalent of Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party. Even comparisons with the British National Party miss the point. Western European far-right parties are essentially protest movements that give voice to the estrangement of a significant section of society from public life. These movements often focus on one issue: immigration. Their support comes from people who experience everyday insecurities as a threat to their identities and way of life. A typical BNP supporter complains that his or her community is about to be, or has been, taken over by an alien culture, and demand a return to the British way of life.

In comparison to Jobbik, the Dutch Freedom Party comes across as relatively tolerant and liberal. Unlike Western far-right parties, supporters of Jobbik are not so much concerned about losing a way of life as they are with inventing one. Throughout history, Hungarian nationalism has been thwarted by military defeats and humiliations. The sense of loss that permeates the Hungarian national consciousness has fostered a mood of bitter resentment towards the intangible forces that ‘frustrate’ the nation. With the fall of the Communist regime and the changes brought about by the end of the Cold War, many believed that prosperity was just around the corner. Sadly, for many Hungarians, the promise of prosperity has not been realised. Eighteen months ago I talked to a 52-year-old fitter called Joska. Pointing his finger at the other customers in the bar in Szekszárd where we were drinking, he said: ‘You see them – we are all losers.’ When I asked him what have they lost, he paused, and then with a note of sadness said: ‘Everything.’

I sensed the same feeling of melancholy bitterness when I happened to wander into a Jobbik rally a few years ago. What struck me was the intense, bitter hatred that dominated the proceedings. Although some of the speakers denounced foreign capitalists, and through euphemistic (and not so euphemistic) rhetoric pointed the finger of blame at Gypsies and Jews, their hatred appeared to be directed at anyone who was not a ‘true Hungarian’. What seemed unusual to me was the feeling of restless anger, which seemed to be in search of a cause. Unlike at your average BNP meeting, many of the Jobbik speakers and activists appeared to be university-educated and relatively sophisticated operators. These were not eccentric malcontents standing on the margins of society, but articulate individuals who felt that they were giving voice to mainstream concerns.

The main impression I got from the rally, and from the other things I have seen and heard about Jobbik, is that this is a very modern movement run by aspirant and frustrated activists who are self-consciously reinventing the Hungarian past as a focus for populist mobilisation. Most observers have commented on the movement’s cynical promotion of Gypsy crime panics and anti-Jewish conspiracy stories about a Zionist takeover of Hungary’s economy. However, Jobbik’s zombie politics is not confined to traditional anti-Semitism and anti-Gypsy racism – more broadly this is a movement committed to the cultural rehabilitation of Hungarian identity. It has tried to mobilise so-called Christian values in an attempt to construct an identity that links religion and nationality. Predictably, this cultural construction often appears as a caricature of itself. Members of the Hungarian Guard, Jobbik’s paramilitary arm, dress up in traditional outfits usually worn by Magyar folk-dancers. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Jobbik performs nationalism rather than lives it. In a Western setting, this would be characterised as the politics of identity.

Despite its electoral success, it is not yet clear whether Jobbik has the political capability to be anything more than an important radical extremist force. What the Hungarian elections do definitely signify is the discrediting and disintegration of the Hungarian political elite. It is the behaviour of the corrupt and self-serving post-Communist oligarchy that gave rise to the current political crisis in Hungary. In practice, ‘regime change’ in Hungary after the end of the Cold War often meant little more than the old Stalinist regime reinventing itself and privatising itself. In such circumstances, popular grievance towards those who are responsible for the injustices of the present can become seamlessly bound up with a demand for revenging the misdeeds of the past. It is the fact that many of the injustices that Jobbik appeals to are real ones which provides this party with the potential to gain influence in the future.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.p.../article/8523/
 
Old June 10th, 2010 #37
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Default Green light for referendum on criminalizing denial of communist crimes

The National Election Committee on Thursday gave the green light to three referendum initiatives aimed at penalising the denial of communist crimes.

Under the initiatives, those denying in public or presenting as insignificant the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Poles by the Soviet secret service in 1940, the trials and tribulations of the population of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarusia, Ukraine and Romania in the coattails of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979 should be punishable by imprisonment of up to three years.

Under a 1989 law, the public has the power to initiate a binding referendum by collecting a minimum of 200,000 supporting signatures within a four-month timeframe.

In late February Hungarian Parliament amended the Penal Code, under which the public denial of the Holocaust is punishable by up to three years in prison.

http://www.politics.hu/20100423/gree...mmunist-crimes
 
Old June 16th, 2010 #38
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Don't know if there is any truth to this but it would be an interesting and positive development.

Quote:
Hungary’s far-right backed by ‘rolling Moscow roubles’

Gabriel Ronay in Budapest, Hungary

Share 0 comments 13 Jun 2010

Hungary’s Jobbik party, the shrillest among Central and Eastern Europe’s far right parties, has been exposed as having received secret financial support from Russia as a quid pro quo for its anti-European Union and anti-Nato bluster.

The issue of “rolling Russian gold roubles”, and alleged “Iranian cash gifts” helping sustain a virulently anti-Roma and anti-semitic party that flaunts its hostility to Western liberal democracy is troubling Hungarian public opinion.

The proto-fascist party’s xenophobia and strong-arm actions against what it calls “the criminal Roma” have secured it a measure of popularity – and, because of its anti-Western stance, Russian interest is not surprising.

Moscow’s alleged influence with this extreme right-wing party has been raised in Hungary’s Parliament and investigated by the National Security Commission (NSC).

Jozsef Gulyas, an independent MP in the last parliament, who brought the troubling issue to the attention of the Parliamentary National Security Committee, said that “though the ‘rolling Russian gold’ was discussed by the NSC in a closed session, officials would not give an unambiguous denial whether this was true”.
more
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/w...bles-1.1034539
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Old July 28th, 2010 #39
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Hungary Sued in Holocaust Art Claim

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/ar...er=rss&emc=rss

Published: July 27, 2010

For more than two decades the heirs of a world-renowned Jewish collector have been petitioning the Hungarian government to return more than $100 million worth of art, most of which has been hanging in Hungarian museums, where it was left for safekeeping during World War II or placed after being stolen by the Nazis and later returned to Hungary.
 
Old August 7th, 2010 #40
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Paul-Éric Blanrue francia történész felhívása a bebörtönzött revizionista, Vincent Reynouard támogatására


http://www.antidogma.hu/node/2356

Franciaországban a történelmi kutatásai miatt bebörtönöztek egy nyolc gyermekes családapát, és a "szabadnak" mondott sajtónak egy szava sincs!

Az 1969-ben született, nős és nyolc gyermekes családapa, Vincent Reynouard kémikus mérnök végzettségű, a Caen-i ISMRA (Institut des sciences de la matiere et du rayonnement atomique) egykori hallgatója. Szívesen mutatja be magát tradicionalista katolikusként, és nem titkolja ultrakonzervatív politikai nézeteit, különösen pedig a második világháború klasszikus verzióját vitatja nyilvánosan, dvd-k és könyvek formájában. Az önmagukat "revizionistának" tituláló és "negacionistának" minősített kutatók közé tartozik, akik nem hiszik el, hogy a német koncentrációs táborokban léteztek (emberirtó) gázkamrák.

2005-ben Reynouard megírt, majd különböző szervezeteknek, múzeumoknak és polgármesteri hivataloknak elküldött egy 16 oldalas dolgozatot "Holokauszt? Amit eltitkolnak önök előtt" címmel, amelyben állást foglal a hivatalos történettudomány ellen. A francia igazságszolgáltatás azonnal lecsapott rá. Első fokon 2007-ben a Saverne-i Szabálysértési Bíróság egy év letöltendő börtönre, 10 ezer eurós pénzbüntetésre és 3000 eurós kártérítésre ítélte, ez utóbbit a LICRA (közismert franciaországi cionista szervezet - a ford. megj.) javára. Másodfokon a Colmari Törvényszék 2008 júniusában helybenhagyta a börtönbüntetést, és összesen 60 ezer euró (20 ezer eurós bírság + kötelező publikációs és egyéb költségek) megfizetésére kötelezte. Példátlan eset.

Mivel Reynouard Belgiumban tartózkodik, Franciaország európai elfogatóparancsot bocsátott ki ellene, hogy a Colmari Törvényszék által elrendelt egy éves börtönbüntetés letöltésére kényszerítse. Ez év július 9-én a belga rendőrség elfogta és kiadatási őrizetbe helyezte. "Amikor csak bebörtönzéssel tudnak megszabadulni egy ellenvélemény hangoztatójától, akkor ez azt jelenti, hogy nincsenek az érveik", mondja Reynouard. Konklúzió: egy 41 éves férfit és nyolc gyermekes családapát jelenleg börtönben tartanak a történelmi kutatásai miatt, a Gayssot-törvény következtében.

Ez a törvény, amelyet a Francia Köztársaság Hivatalos Közlönye 1990. július 14-én tett közzé, a 24. cikkelyének b) pontjában megtiltja "egy vagy több emberiségellenes bűn kétségbe vonását, ahogyan azokat az 1945. augusztus 8-i Londoni megállapodáshoz csatolt Nemzetközi Katonai Bíróság statútumának 6. cikkelye meghatározza".

Amint arra a Sarkozy, Israel et les juifs (Sarkozy, Izrael és a zsidók, Oser dire, 2009) című könyvemben emlékeztettem, ezt a szabadsággyilkos törvényt élesen bírálta számos személyiség, köztük Simone Veil akadémikus, Hélene Carrere d'Encausse, a Francia Akadémia örökös titkára, Jean Foyer, Jacques Toubon és Alain Peyrefitte miniszterek, Henri Amouroux, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Annie Kriegel, Francois Furet, Alain Besancon, Jacques Willequet és Francois Bédarida történészek (Willequet kivételével mindannyian zsidók - a ford. megj.), Chantal Delsol, a Hannah Arendt Kutatási Intézet alapítója, Maurice Allais Nobel-díjas közgazdász, Michel Tournier, Pouis Pauwels, Michel Houellebecq, Philippe Muray, Jean Daniel, Vladimir Volkoff, Michel Rachline és Alain Robe-Grillet írók, Philippe Bilger, Alain Marsaud és Raoul Béteillle bírók, Olivier Duhamel, Anne-Marie Le Pourhiet, Emmanuelle Duverger, André Decoq és Guy Carcassonne jogtudósok, Jacques Verges és John Bastardi Daumont ügyvédek, Paul Ricoeur filozófus, Bruno Gaccio humorista, valamint a szólásszabadság olyan védelmezői, mint a Reporters sans frontieres (Újságírók határok nélkül) alapítója, Robert Ménard (aki ezt a törvényt "gondolatrendőrségként" leplezi le) és Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, Dominique Jamet, Delfeil de Ton, Alain Rollat, Albert du Roy, Philippe Tesson, Jacques Julliard és Ivan Rioufol újságírók vagy a Ligue des droits de l'homme (Emberi Jogok Ligája) volt elnöke, Madeleine Rebérioux. Külföldön Noam Chomsky amerikai nyelvész az abszolút ellenfelének nyilvánította magát. Jean Bricmont belga fizikus és értelmiségi szerint "a Gayssot-törvény több évszázados jogi visszalépést" jelent, Hugo Chávez venezuelai és Mahmúd Ahmadinezsád iráni elnökök pedig a maguk részéről szigorúan elítélték ezt a megtorló eszközt.

Immáron ránk hárul tehát, hogy ne csak elméleti síkon, hanem a gyakorlatban is megvédjük a szólásszabadságot. Miért nem hallunk senkit, aki nyilvánosan leleplezné a Vincent Renouard-nak szánt sorsot? Mit tesz a Reporters sans frontieres, az Amnesty International és a Human Rights Watch? Egyetlen francia és külföldi médium sem tájékoztatta a közvéleményt erről az ügyről. Ez a csönd abnormális.

Személy szerint én úgy döntöttem, hogy történészként és állampolgárként reagálok, és e nyilatkozat útján tudatom felháborodásomat, hogy Franciaországban börtönbe vetnek valakit a véleménye miatt, bármennyire szokatlan, megdöbbentő és vitatott is legyen az. Egy ilyen eljárás nem méltó Franciaországhoz és értelmiségi tradíciójához. A törvénynek nem szabad beavatkoznia a történelmi igazság meghatározásába: egy szabad államban ez a történészek dolga. A Gayssot-törvény, amely korlátozza a kutatók szabadságát, ellentétes a demokratikus állam fogalmával; ez egy gonosz, kegyetlen és aljas törvény. Következésképpen kérem az azonnali eltörlését.

Remélem, hogy rövidesen mások is csatlakozni fognak hozzám tízével, százával, ezrével, mert nem maradhatnak közömbösek ezzel a botránnyal szemben, amely súlyosan árt Franciaország hírnevének és megcsúfolja a Köztársaság szellemét.

Azok, akik velem együtt hajlandók aláírni ezt a nyilatkozatot, az alábbi címen tehetik meg: [email protected]. Nem Vincent Reynouard vallási, politikai vagy történelmi nézeteinek a támogatásáról van szó, hanem azon jogának a védelméről, hogy szabadon kifejthesse ezeket. A megvitatásukhoz és a kétségbe vonásukhoz demokratikus, nyílt, őszinte és fair vitára van szükség.

Az aláírásokat szeptember végén fogjuk összesíteni, addig is köszönöm, hogy minél szélesebb körben terjesztik ezt a szöveget.

PAUL-ÉRIC BLANRUE történész, a Cercle zététique alapítója, a Sarkozy, Israel et les juifs című könyv szerzője
 
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