Tag Archives: anti-Semitism

Book Note: _October 16, 1943: Eight Jews_

02 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Books, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology

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For more than fifty years, Giacomo Debenedetti’s October 16, 1943 has been considered one of the best and most accurate accounts of the shockingly brief and efficient roundup of more than one thousand Roman Jews from the oldest Jewish community in Europe for the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

October 16, 1943/Eight Jews // Books // University of Notre Dame Press

October 16, 1943: Eight Jews: Giacomo Debenedetti, Estelle Gilson: 9780268037130: Amazon.com: Books

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The earliest documentary evidence relating to Jews in Rome is Valerius Maximus’ Factorum ac Dictorum Memo­rabilium stating that the Praetor Gnaeus Cornelius His­panus expelled the Chaldaeans, astrologers, and some Jews from Rome in 139 B.C.  In 63 B.C. Pompey con­quered Jerusalem and brought an unknown number of Jew­ish prisoners of war to Rome. Trastevere was the chief Jewish quarter: (STET)

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There is a brighter side to the story of the Holo­caust in Rome though. The Nazis arrested only 1,259 Jews in the October 16 raid. In the following months, they were able to ar­rest only a few hundred more, even after offering cash rewards. The total num­ber of Roman Jews exterminated was approximately 1,970.20 Over eighty percent of the Roman Jews survived the Holo­caust. None were killed be­fore the German oc­cupation. The total number of Ital­ian Jews known to have been killed during the Holo­caust is 7,922 out of approxi­mately 40,000. Again, over eighty percent survived.

The Holocaust in Rome: 1943-1944 | REPUBLK – 10/23/2012.

There was no “brighter side to the story” — what if only “1,259” (and “1,970.20” is not an approximation) persons had included your family, friends, associates?

The perhaps inherent youth factor implicit in Daniel T. Murphy’s Masters thesis (1993) may fit with how the Jews of Rome on October 16, 1943 were rounded up by lists developed in accord with Italian racial laws enforced under the fascist government preceding the interim government of Prime Minister Pietro Badoglio, who in his flight from imminent German army occupation would leave the same intact —  “Badoglio’s bureaucrats refused to destroy their many lists of Jewish names and addresses” says historian Susan Zuccotti as quoted by translator Estelle Gilson, translator of Debenedetti’s book — for their Nazi successors.

Enriching the experience of reading Giacomo Debenedetti’s gem in Holocaust lore are Estelle Gilson’s introduction plus an end-note, “The Fate of the Roman Jewish Libraries”, and an historic preface by Alberto Moravia.

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Contrary to general opinion, Jews are not distrustful by nature.  Or to put it more clearly, they are distrustful in the same degree that they are perceptive about small matters, but credulous and disastrously ingenuous when it comes to large ones.  In regard to the Germans, they were ingenuous, almost ostentatiously so.  There are several possible reasons for this.  Convinced by centuries of experience that it is their fate to be treated like dogs, Jews have a desperate need for human sympathy; and to solicit it, they offer it.  To trust people, to rely on them, to believe in their promises, is precisely such a proof of sympathy.  Will they behave this way with the Germans?  Yes, unfortunately.  With the Germans there would also come into play the classic Jewish attitude toward authority.  Even before the first fall of Jerusalem, authority has exercised absolute, arbitrary, and inscrutable power of life and death over Jews.  This has operated in such a way that both in their conscious and unconscious minds authority has assumed the form of an exclusive, jealous, and omnipresent God.  To distrust His promises, whether good or bad, is to fall into sin for which sooner or later one will have to pay, even if that sin remains unexpressed, and is only an intention, or a mumbled complaint.  And finally, the fundamental idea of Judaism is justice.  The mission of the Jews was to bring this idea to Eastern civilization.  Renan makes this expressly the theme of his interpretation of the entire history of Israel, including the great eschatological statements, including the Messianic wait, and the promise that on that Day of the Lord, tomorrow or who knows when, He will light His dawn at the height of the millennia precisely to bring back the reign of justice upon this earth.

For these reasons, Rome’s Jews had a certain kind of faith in the Germans . . . .

So sad, so tragic, so horrifying a story as Debenedetti tells continues today in the anti-Semitic / anti-Zionist rants and machinations of political movements as diverse as Arab Baathism and resurgent eastern European nationalism.

Enlarged in scope, the same immense black cloud descends on the Christian west, on the Christian communities of the middle east under assault today by the forces funded along the Muslims Brotherhood and Wahhabi fronts with their black flags flying where once stood crosses, and on Muslim communities worldwide as a red death explodes in unpredictable but numerous roadside and suicide bombings, assassinations, and countless beheading.

Before the onslaughts of al-Qaeda and Company, who is not a Jew?

This blogger, having read this extraordinary book, October 16, 1943 / Eight Jews, is to return to the news of similar persecutions taking place right now worldwide.

Additional and Related Reference

incunabula (printing) — Encyclopedia Britannica

Pietro Badoglio – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Italian Racial Laws – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ernest Renan – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Susan Zuccotti – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Giacomo Debenedetti – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Ukraine – “Russia and The Jews” – Dueling Attitudes

25 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Eurasia, Politics, Regions, Ukraine

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It was a country where the late actor Bogdan Stupka could move audiences by playing Tevye the Dairyman—in Ukrainian. In 2004, during the Orange Revolution—triggered by protests against a fraudulent election “won” by Viktor Yanukovych—my Ukrainian friends demonstrated alongside Boris Naumovich, an octogenarian veteran of the Red Army with whom I practiced speaking Yiddish. Now, a decade later, an equally diverse coalition has turned out for the past three months again to protest Yanukovych, who over the weekend was ousted from the presidency he took over in 2010, and who appears to have fled to the Crimea.

Jews Join Maidan To Preserve an Independent, and Safe, Ukraine – Tablet Magazine – 2/25/2014.

* * *

It takes as much or more time to compile quotations and reference as it may to reflect and speak, so for this scraping post, I may say very little: Ukraine has come to the new dawn riven with internal conflicts about being Ukrainian with but one exception: being modern.

In the modern ethos, and would that I would have influence in it, those five bulwarks to the left-and-top count: Compassion • Empathy • Humility • Inclusion • Integrity.

Notably, if quite accidentally, my web surf took me first to “Ukraine, revolution, anti-Semitism” and then to “Ukraine, revolution, Jewish”, which somehow brought up another how-did-I-ever-miss-this encounter with a proper noun: “Viktor Pinchuk”.

Never heard of him.

(Quick: name Putin’s top ten oligarchs)!

I didn’t think so (but am nonetheless prepared to be surprised by the odd persnickety personality).

Pinchuk and the Jewish community of about 200,000 in Ukraine are not “Ukraine”, but they are certainly a fine and legitimate part of it, and Ukraine, rather like Hungary, hasn’t a soul more pure than any other of the world’s states, but then too, it has its language and languages are distinct and matched to culture, so whether Christian or Jewish or Muslim, capitalist or communist, far left or far right or somewhere between, Ukrainians have a common investment in land and language, a true meta-ethnicity adorned by differences.

* * *

On the one hand, one of the three long-ago gates of Kiev was known as Judaic. On the other hand, there was Khmelnitsky.

He is the Ukrainian national hero, who led the Cossacks to power and whose massacres of the Jews were some of the bloodiest in our history.

A solid, but wary, ‘l’chaim’ to the Ukrainian revolution – Opinion Israel News | Haaretz – 2/25/2014.

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Among the events reporte, Rabbi Margolin lists: a fire bomb thrown at a synagogue in Zhprozha, a message telling the rabbi of Krivoy Rog that he must leave the city within 72 hours, a graffito on the home of the rabbi of Blitzkorov saying “we are already near you,” another graffito near a Jewish building in Kiev saying “you are next,” and other anti-Semitic graffiti.

‘Israel, Protect Us!’ – Jewish World – News – Israel National News – 2/25/2014.

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Protest coverage focused on the call for European integration and the struggle against the Yanukovich regime has largely glossed over the rise in nationalist rhetoric, often chauvinist, that has led to violence not just against police, but also against left-wing activists.

The Ukrainian Nationalism at the Heart of ‘Euromaidan’ | The Nation – 2/21/2014.

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“Germans, Kikes and other scum” want to “take away our Ukrainian state”.

Neo-Nazis and far-right protesters in Ukraine – Imgur

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He called upon his supporters saying: “[You are the ones] that the Moscow-Jewish mafia ruling Ukraine fears most.”

It was an apparent reference to a Moscow-leaning political leadership, and the strong presence of ethnic Jewish billionaires in Ukraine’s business elite.

Tyahnybok: Nationalist, fearful of Russia, favors NATO – 10/29/2008.

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A number of young Jews are involved in the protests, which have drawn together a diverse coalition of liberal youth and opposition party leaders, including members of the ultranationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party, whose leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, has freely trafficked anti-Semitic stereotypes.

“If the nationalists are in favor of a regime change in the country, and I am also, then they won’t prevent me from going out into the Maidan with everyone and expressing my opinions,” Evgenia Talinovskaya told JTA. “The EuroMaidan movement is primarily identified with the educated youth. And Jewish youth in Ukraine primarily fall under that description.”

In Ukraine protests, young Jews are marching with ultranationalists | Jewish Telegraphic Agency – 12/8/2014.

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He has spent the years since the Orange Revolution working to build a profile as a philanthropist. He recently pledged half his fortune, estimated by Forbes at $3.8 billion, to charity and has underwritten large-scale AIDS campaigns, opened up a free museum of contemporary art in central Kiev, and teamed up with Steven Spielberg to produce a documentary about the Holocaust in Ukraine. As pro-European reforms have stalled, Pinchuk has emerged as his country’s top advocate in the West, using his annual Yalta summits to push for Ukraine’s closer integration with the European Union.

In Ukraine, a Jewish Oligarch Is a Bridge to the West – Tablet Magazine – on Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk – 12/13/2013.

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KYIV, UKRAINE FEB 18, 2014

Statement of Victor Pinchuk

Victor Pinchuk said: “A peaceful solution must be found, it is imperative to refrain from the use of force and find a compromise. Ukraine since its independence has avoided bloodshed. We must return to this tradition immediately. From this minute, this is the responsibility of everyone – those in power, the opposition, civil society, business. It is time for all sides to take courageous steps towards compromise that they may not yet have been ready to take even this morning. For each of us, love for Ukraine must be immeasurably more important than any other feelings and interests.”

Press-office

The Victor Pinchuk Foundation

Victor Pinchuk Foundation – Facebook – 2/18/2014

The first respondent on the organization’s Facebook post: “Put your money where your mouth is.”

🙂

From the looks of his foundation, plus the company he keeps — Branson and Gates, for starters — Pinchuk has been putting his money behind his words.

Pinchuk’s February 18 call for peace is repeated on his foundation’s web site (as viewed today).

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We never had in our newest history even one drop of blood on the streets, but today we already have four or five people who were killed. I’ve never been so worried about my country, about the future of my country. I don’t want to bring politics in here but I want to ask you to share …here are hundreds of people from more than 50 countries from 5 continents, I want to ask you to share silence for 60 seconds in which we send our thoughts to Ukrainian people and we pray for peace, reason, compromise and reconciliation.

Minute of Silence During the 7th Philanthropic Roundtable of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Davos – YouTube – 1/23/2014

Additional Reference

Oleh Tyahnybok – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ukraine’s Forever Revolution – David Stern – The Atlantic – 2/5/2014.

Victor Pinchuk Foundation

Svoboda (political party) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Update

Micics, David.  “The Head of the Jewish Community of Ukraine Speaks Out Against Putin.”  Tablet.  April 29, 2014.

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Syria – “Moderate” Jew Hate

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Politics, Regions, Syria

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Bahra also stresses that scores of civilians are killed in Syria on a daily basis at the hands of Hezbollah militiamen and other sectarian gangs coming to Syria from neighboring countries.

Syrian National Coalition Of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces – Syrian Coalition: Hezbollah’s turned The Region into Chaos

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Syria’s “moderate” opposition, represented in the above report by the Syrian Coalition, has a problem:

Khalid Saleh, head of the Media Office, said that “the visit paid by Prime Minister of the Israeli occupation to one of the hospitals where injured Syrians are being hospitalized is nothing more than a publicity gimmick . . . .

Syrian National Coalition Of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces – Saleh: Israel Stands with Assad, Not the Syrian People – 2/20/2014.

And it is becoming visible.

* * *

If you can’t even bring yourself to say thank you to medical aid from Israel, how on earth are you ever going to bring yourself to meet the greater challenge of living and let live with those Syrians who fought for the regime over the years?

For the Sake of Syria, the Political Opposition Has to Grow Up » From Homs to Istanbul – 2/20/2014.

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By way of western media, I had been given the impression that Syria’s revolution included a beleaguered but moderate fighting force.  With that impression in mind, I have begun following “Free Syrian Media” which puts through the Syrian National Coalition voice.

Elsewhere on this blog, I have suggested that the Syrian People simply have not had an army working in their interest.

Bashar al-Assad has had an army working in his interest.

Islamic zealots appear to have as many armies as they have themselves working in their interests (please, do not drag God into this horror).

However, the Syrian People have been either abandoned or punished between armies, anything but defended.

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The monolithic minds of the American anti-Jihad (in their heads: all Muslims bad) have not overlooked similarities in battlefield barbarism, e.g., see Bare Naked Islam’s “‘Moderate’ Free Syrian Army rebels sent a selfie to Obama, their best friend and support in the U.S.'” for an example of that.  However, the zero-change in the flow down from programmatic Baathist anti-Semitism signals how little interest the Syrian opposition may have in producing a full out regime-changing, culture altering, and permanent revolutionary redemption and rescue of the Syrian People.

Related: Point of No Return: Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries: The pro-Nazi antisemitism of the Syrian regime – 5/16/2011.

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States of Affairs:

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e486a76.html

Residing in Syrian Arab Republic [1]
Refugees [2]
More info 149,709

Refugee figure for Iraqis in the Syrian Arab Republic is a Government estimate. UNHCR has registered and is assisting 42,400 Iraqis at mid-2013.
Asylum Seekers [3] 2,069
Returned Refugees [4] 52,806
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPS)[5] 4,254,500
Returned IDPs [6] 0
Stateless Persons [7] 160,000
Various [8] 4
Total Population of Concern 4,619,088
Originating from Syrian Arab Republic [1]
Refugees [2] 1,888,823
Asylum Seekers [3] 33,335
Returned Refugees [4] 52,806
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPS)[5] 4,254,500
Returned IDPs [6] 0
Various [8] 7,903
Total Population of Concern 6,237,367

“As at mid-2013” says the above cited page of the above cited statistics.

Dead: 140,000+

Reference: Syria’s death toll now exceeds 140,000: activist group | Reuters – 2/15/2014.

Dead, dying, injured, or homeless would seem less than an optimal condition for maintaining Jew hate, but the insecure hubris of it appears present.

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For Arabs, Zionism and Jewishness are one and the same thing.

  • The influence of Nazi ideals and prejudices on Arab nationalism and the paranoid attitudes of the region’s leaders effectively stymie any chances of reconciliation between the two peoples.
  •  Historical evidences show that the much-praised racial harmony of Al-andalus has been exaggerated for political purposes.
  • The negative image of Jews in the Quran has been deliberately misinterpreted in order to keep hatred of Jews alive among Arabs today.

uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:344823/FULLTEXT01.pdf – Wiji Bohme Shomary, History (course), Spring 2010.

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Careers are made of the study of anti-Semitism, and I’m not going to load this page for that.

However, whether because Mohammad said a few things, or perhaps because Islam must prevail (and Christians and Jews are just so, you know, 5th Century), or it just plain feels good to feel hate and have a convenient target for it — whatever the cause of the illness — it has to go.

For the keys to letting go, there’s a pair around here in the contemplation of language uptake and related cultural programming (how we learn to listen) and scripting (what we learn to say).

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The United States and its principal European and Arab allies have agreed on a unified way of providing Syrian rebel groups with aid, classifying them into those who should receive arms supplies and other assistance, those who are ineligible because of clear extremist ties, and those whose eligibility requires further discussion, according to U.S. and allied officials.

U.S., allies agree on standards for which opposition groups in Syria will receive aid – The Washington Post – 2/21/2014.

I wonder if those standards might include any indices for anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic cant and the continued and Assad-oriented desire to damage or destroy the Jewish State and refuse the influence of the west while enjoying shipments of its war fighting equipage and materiel.

Related Reference

For the Sake of Syria, the Political Opposition Has to Grow Up – 2/20/2014.

Elder Of Ziyon – Israel News: Amazing blog post from a Syrian refugee in Istanbul – 2/20/2014.

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Link

http://www.jta.org/2014/02/20/news-opinion/world/hungary-postpones-controversial-monuments-unveiling

20 Thursday Feb 2014

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http://www.jta.org/2014/02/20/news-opinion/world/hungary-postpones-controversial-monuments-unveiling

But on Wednesday, a government spokesperson said the ceremony had been postponed to May 31, according to the French news agency AFP. The  monument also will be “dedicated to the memory of the victims of German occupation,” a statement by the Hungarian abinet said.

Hungary’s Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities, or Mazsihisz, said earlier this month that it would boycott the ceremony.

Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/02/20/news-opinion/world/hungary-postpones-controversial-monuments-unveiling#ixzz2tsOaKfkB

Link

http://www.steynonline.com/6101/hath-not-a-jew-eyes

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Islamic Small Wars

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Hath Not a Jew Eyes? :: SteynOnline – 2/17/2014.

I would like Foxman to go to Toulouse, a city the size of Jacksonville, Florida, where in recent years one synagogue has been firebombed, another set alight when two burning cars were driven into it, a third burgled and “Dirty Jews” scrawled on the ark housing the Torah, where a kosher butcher’s was strafed with gunfire, and a Jewish sports association attacked with Molotov cocktails, and three Jewish children murdered outside their grade school, I would like Foxman to go to Toulouse and tell any Jew he finds there (they are advised by their rabbis not to wear identifying marks of their faith) that it’s all the work of “anti-government people”.

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Why Everyone Should Boycott Official 2014 Holocaust Commemorations in Hungary

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Europe, Hungary, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions

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Dr. David Mandler's avatarDavid Mandler's Blog

Imagine the White House chief of staff stating the following at a press conference after a significant meeting about a highly controversial issue with the leading representatives of American Jewry: “the President will address all of our fellow Americans as well as our Jewish citizens next week.” It does not take a lot of imagination to envision the firestorm of criticism that would follow such a division of the American people into real Americans vs. Jewish citizens of America.

Yet, this is precisely what János Lázár, the Minister of State for the Prime Minister’s Office, said after the unsuccessful round-table meeting with leading Hungarian Jewish organizations. Of course, he was not talking about fellow Americans but rather “fellow Hungarian countrymen” and “our Jewish citizens.” Perhaps at other times, this statement would have drawn more fire from liberal Hungarians and Hungarian Jews alike. At this time, though, Hungarian Jews are, in a…

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Hungary’s UN Envoy Seeks to Clear National Conscience, Admits Hungarian Collusion in the Holocaust

26 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Hungary, Politics

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“Hungarian state institutions at the time [shared responsibility] for the Holocaust. This apology today by the Hungarian state must become part of national memory and identity,” he added.

Hungary’s UN envoy makes country’s first-ever Holocaust apology – Jewish World News Israel News | Haaretz – 1/25/2014.

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Hungary at UN apologizes for role in the Holocaust | JPost | Israel News – 1/25/2014.

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He added: cowardly attempt to keep the attention of diverting the Horthy regime of Judaism destruction played a role, and confuse the Holocaust of Hungarian people with the “suffering” caused by the German occupation, while the latter historical facts prove that instead of resistance rather general received applause – wrote in the letter. wrote I understand that “due to various political and economic reasons, the Holocaust Memorial Center operating managers do not want or can not speak out against this impudent forger course of history.”

Mazsihisz.hu – 1/26/2-14.

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Serious efforts are being made by Fidesz-Jobbik supporters to recreate the old Soviet/Russian friendship from which twenty-three years ago Hungarians were happy to escape.

Attack on the United States and friendship with “tolerant” Russia | Hungarian Spectrum – 1/23/2014.

Hungarian Ambassador Casba Körösi would seem to understand that the Jobbik Party, its affections, whatever the basis, for Iran, Russia, and Putin’s own nationalist “vertical of power”, and its disaffection with Jews and the open democracies of the west have put Hungary on a collision course with a 1933 all its own.

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In admitting Hungary’s guilt he said institutions in the the Hungarian state of the 1940s were responsible for the Holocaust as they had been complicit in accepting incidents led to the genocide of Hungarian Jews.

Hungary apologises for its part in Holocaust | Denver Sun – 1/26/2014.

With whom — what what — shall Hungarians go?

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Miklos Horthy, Hungary’s controversial leader during World War II, oversaw the deportation of some 18,000 Jews to the German-occupied Soviet Union in 1941 — more than 10,000 of whom were murdered — and is seen by many as complicit in the mass deportations to Nazi death camps in 1944 which resulted in the deaths of around 450,000 Hungarian Jews.

NewsDaily: US scholar returns Hungary award over Holocaust ‘whitewash’ – 1/26/2014.

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“We know we are responsible for the Holocaust and we also know that Hungarian state institutions were responsible for the Holocaust,” Navracsics said in parliament. “Hungarians were the perpetrators and Hungarians were those who suffered. Hungarians did the shooting and Hungarians died.”

Jewish groups in Hungary oppose 1944 memorial – The Washington Post – 1/21/2014.

The statements may be subtle.  That above by Hungary’s standing Minister of Justice recognizes what happened and yet equates the suffering as general: for sure, Hungarians did the shooting, but where the Holocaust and ethnic cleansing are concerned, it was Hungarian Jews who were made to die, and while not alone in that for ethnic persecution — more on that in a moment — certainly the numbers overwhelm.

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Some Gypsies were sterilized as early as 1933, though no Jews yet were; beginning in the same year, camps were being established by the Nazis to contain Gypsies at Vennhausen, Dieseistrasse, Mahrzan and Dachau, although at so early a date Jewish victims were not being sent en masse to any camps. It is a matter of singular disgrace that in 1936 the anti-Gypsy campaign became globalized, through the establishment of the international Centre for the Fight against the Gypsy Menace by Interpol in Vienna. Again, this did not happen for the Jews. In effect, the Nazi Party sought, and was given, the cooperation of other Euopean governments in its campaign to locate and identify Gypsies throughout Europe for its later plans for extermination.

Gypsies: A Persecuted Race : Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies : University of Minnesota – 1985.

“Jew Hate” is never confined to the Jews, but perhaps ever since Abraham’s failure to speak for Isaac when asked to make a sacrifice of him, Jews have been “speaking truth to power” for thousands of years and are a vocal people, so it is good today to learn of power in the person of an Hungarian ambassador speaking truth to the Jobbik Party and Prime Minister Viktor Mihály Orbán’s government.

Hungarians know what Hungarians have done.  Clear acknowledgment might cleanse a national conscience, that as opposed to covering it up, glossing it over, in successive acts of patronizing cant and shameful cowardice.

Addendum

Dear György és Szabolcs:

I am writing to request that you remove my name from the Téka és Információs Központ at the Holocaust at the Holokauszt Emlékközpont. I reached this decision with a heavy heart, having followed the recent developments in Hungary with great concern. The history-cleansing campaign of the past few years calculated to whitewash the historical record of the Horthy era, including the changes in the constitution that “legalized” the sinister measures that were subsequently taken to absolve Hungary from the active role it had played in the destruction of close to 600,000 of its citizens of the Jewish faith, have left me, and I assume many others, stunned.

Randolph L. Braham’s open letter | Hungarian Spectrum – 1/26/2014.

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