Hungarian Jews condemn official who wrote that “Europe is the gas chamber of Soros”

The Federation of Hungarian Jewish communities (MAZSIHISZ), the country’s EJC affiliate, condemned a government-appointed cultural commissioner for comparing George Soros to Hitler in an article about Hungary and Poland’s row with the EU over rule of law.

“Europe has become the gas chamber of George Soros… George Soros is the liberal Fuhrer,” Szilard Demeter, head of the Petőfi Literary Museum, wrote on the pro-government news-site Origo.hu about Soros, a liberal Jewish billionaire and Holocaust survivor.

“Poles and Hungarians “are the new Jews,” said Demeter, “these ‘Liberaryans’ are now aiming at excluding us Poles and Hungarians from the one last political community where we still have rights.”

“To describe Europe as a gas chamber 75 years after Auschwitz is tasteless, and is unforgivable from the head of a state institution. More than 430,000 of our compatriots were gassed in Auschwitz. Anyone who relativises this in the context of a current political debate, even indirectly, is insensitive to the pain and suffering of 20th century Hungarian history and Hungarian Jewry in particular,” read a statement by the MASZIHISZ.

“Calling Europe ‘the gas chamber of George Soros’ is a textbook case of the relativisation of the Holocaust, and therefore incompatible with the government’s zero tolerance policy with regard to antisemitism. It is seriously irresponsible of the head of the Petőfi Literary Museum to play on existing prejudices,” the statement continued.

“As far as the MAZSIHISZ is concerned, the writings of Szilárd Demeter published on the Origo.hu website are unacceptable for any upstanding citizen.”

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