More than 10,000 people united on Sunday to remember the tragedy of Hungarian Jews who died in the flames of the Holocaust.
The country’s annual “March of Life” was led this year by keynote speaker Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, who took the opportunity to denounce the rise of the far-right Jobbik party. Speaking at the end of the march, Lauder called Jobbik “an extremist party that promotes hate.”
Describing a Jobbik official who spat on a Holocaust memorial in Budapest, Lauder said, “Jobbik may think they are true Hungarians trying to save Hungary, but Jobbik hurts Hungary… The Hungarian Jewish community is not going anywhere. We march today to say ‘We are here. We are alive. And here we will remain.’ “
Lauder’s grandparents were Hungarian, although he himself was born in the United States.
Some 600,000 Hungarian Jews died at the hands of the Nazis during World War II, with only 100,000 having survived the Holocaust at the end of the war. Most were in Budapest; a few came to Israel.
As in the rest of Europe, anti-Semitism has seen a rise in Hungary as well. The anti-Semitic Jobbik party has become the second-largest political party after the ruling Fidesz party led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Jobbik is also to have won its first parliamentary district this time around in a special election on Sunday. The results are not yet final, but the exit polls are grim. Jobbik won a full 20.5 percent of the vote last year in the parliamentary elections.