A week of events began in Hungary to memorialize the country’s 600,000 Jewish Holocaust victims.
A minute of silence was observed Monday, and a session was held in the Parliament building in Budapest.
“After Auschwitz there is zero tolerance toward hate speech, anti-Semitism and
Holocaust denial,” Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said. A Jewish lawmaker’s proposal to say Kaddish at the end of the ceremony was refused.
Kaddish was said at a Holocaust
memorial event Sunday at the Central Dohany Street Synagogue, where a large crowd gathered. Gyurcsany led a “March for
Life” demonstration, joined by political and religious leaders, including leaders of the Jewish community.
In related news, Efraim Zuroff, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Jerusalem branch, who is now in Budapest, demanded that an alleged
Hungarian war criminal be prosecuted. Zuroff, who spoke at the Dohany Street Synagogue event, met Monday with Chief Prosecutor Zsolt Falvai.
“I asked to open up the criminal case against Sandor Kepiro,” age 93, “who lives freely in his Budapest apartment,”
Zuroff told JTA, adding that he handed over evidence that he said proved Kepiro’s responsibility for war crimes.
