Hungarian official retracts comparing George Soros to Hitler

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By JUSTIN SPIKE

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — After facing strong condemnation, a Hungarian commissioner on Sunday begrudgingly retracted an article comparing American-Hungarian billionaire and philanthropist George Soros, a staunch critic of Hungary’s government, to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

“Europe is George Soros’ gas chamber,” Szilard Demeter, ministerial commissioner and head of the Petofi Literary Museum in Budapest, wrote in an opinion Saturday in the pro-government Origo media outlet. “Poison gas flows from the capsule of a multicultural open society, which is deadly to the European way of life.”

The comments drew outrage from Hungary’s Jewish community, including the Unified Hungarian Jewish Congregation, which called the article “tasteless” and “unforgivable.”

“(It’s) a textbook case of the relativization of the Holocaust, and is therefore incompatible with the government’s claim of zero tolerance for anti-Semitism,” the group said.



FILE - In this June 21, 2019 file photo, George Soros, founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundations, looks before the Joseph A. Schumpeter award ceremony in Vienna, Austria. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/budapest-george-soros-europe-hungary-europe-913b41d42319578a24d6daba50b7b0bb

[rso]

1. Hungary

There is a parallel between PM Orban’s Party and the radicalization of the GOP right here at home. I was posted in Budapest from 2000 to 2004, and PM Orban and his Party were in power for most of that time, but they were at most a center-right Party, rejecting alliances from extreme right elements. Today, they are a populist, neo-fascist Party, having undergone a radicalization similar to the GOP’s.

[erronis]

2. Thanks for service in Hungary. Do you detect the tendrils from the USSR/Russia, then and now?

Of course, the Kremlin has always meddled in most of eastern Europe; and tried to do the same in the western/NATO/world.

I wonder what has made the current PM-for-life (Putin) able to be more successful than those that preceded him.

[rso]

3. Hungary

The irony is that during my time there, it was the far-left parties that were more sympathetic to Russia (Hungary has a Parliamentary system, so there are many political parties). But as Putin assumed power from Yeltsin and eventually became a right-wing kleptocrat, the Hungarian right allied itself with Putin. And the key point here is that other than for a few years in the 1990s and early 2000s, Hungary has absolutely no tradition of western-styled democracy in its thousand year history.

[yardwork]

4. That's true of Eastern Europe in general, right?

Russia, for instance, has no tradition of democracy or an elected Republic? Thank you for posting on this subject, which I know little about.

[rso]

9. Hungary

Yes, the only exception that comes to mind is the Czech Republic, which did have western-style democracy between the two World Wars.

[SunSeeker]

8. Yes, and Eastern Europe has always been horrifically antisemitic.

Last edited Sun Nov 29, 2020, 07:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Not that the rest of the world has been all that welcoming to Jews...

[sandensea]

11. +1

Excellent analogy. This is happening is numerous countries with eroding white majorities, sadly - including, most notably, the U.S.

[JI7]

13. But Hungary is a very white country

[sandensea]

14. With growing migration from the Middle East, and a sizable Gypsy minority whom they HATE

- the way a Repug might hate a Mexican lady in front of him at the grocery store at rush hour.

With 8 kids. Plus the abuela.

That kind of hatred.

[JI7]

15. But Hungary is still over 90 percent White . The US is about 40 percent non white

[thucythucy]

5. An added irony here is that

during World War II Hungary was allied with Germany, sending its army to aid the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

It's government was also hugely complicit in the Holocaust.

[rso]

10. Hungary

Yes, the WW 2 government of Admiral Horthy (a left-over title from the old Austro-Hungarian Empire) initially resisted the roundup of Jews but later relented, and the virulently antisemitic Hungarian Arrow Party gleefully joined the Germans in persecution and murder.

[Behind the Aegis]

6. 565,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered.

Estimated 80% of the population of Jews.

[SunSeeker]

7. What right wingers have done to that great philanthropist is unconscionable.

Soros has done nothing but help people, and he gets pilloried like he is the devil incarnate.

[Oscarthegreat]

12. Complaining about Hungary

Since Hungary has almost no democratic history and tradition, it's hard to complain about its current fascist government when our own GOP is just as fascist, racist and against a multi ethnic, multi cultural society. Hungary doesn't even pretend to be a true democracy, why do we?

[JI7]

16. Majority of Americans Voted for Joe Biden and even in 2016 Hillary Clinton got more votes

We do have a significant minority that is bigoted and everything ugly but they are still a minority . And more of us are working against that everyday .