Jewish memorial plaques were damaged and removed from a building here last week, the second time such an act has taken place.
Unidentified vandals removed three memorial plaques from the building on Vadasz Street that during the Holocaust housed the Swiss Embassy’s mission for rescuing Jews.
From 1944 until the Russians entered Hungary on Jan. 17, 1945, the mission provided protective papers to thousands of Hungarian Jews and sheltered some 1,000 refugees.
Once, the Hungarian Nazis broke into the building, dragging away and killing several Jews.
The plaques were placed on the building to keep alive the memory of the martyrs and recall the help given the community by the Swiss.
The removal of the plaques can only be regarded as an act of anti-Semitism, as was the previous such vandalism, said Gusztav Zoltai, manager of the Hungarian Jewish Association.
In the earlier incident, a memorial tablet was removed from the side building of the main synagogue here, near the plaque which memorializes the birthplace of Theodor Herzl.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
