Wiesenthal Center condemns Saturday’s ‘neo-Nazi’ event in Székesfehérvár

A flier for Saturday’s event, published on the Simon Wiesenthal Center website.

“This weekend’s scheduled event in featuring a SS veteran and neo-Nazis followed by a concert ... is another blatant attempt to honor and glorify the perpetrators of the Holocaust,” said Mark Weitzman, the Wiesenthal Center’s director of government affairs, in a statement published on the center’s website before the event took place. “For such an event to be allowed to go forward without any condemnation in the country that is currently chairing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and has a law against Holocaust denial, is an exercise in political and historical hypocrisy.”

The statement noted that Székesfehérvár was the city where plans last year to erect a statue of Bálint Hóman, a fascist World-War-II-era Hungarian politician who created anti-Jewish laws and supported the deportation of Hungarian Jews to death camps, were cancelled in the face of international outrage.

“When I met with the mayor of Szekesfehervar in December regarding the proposed Hóman statue, he expressed his concern that Székesfehérvár would be remembered for that controversy,” said Weitzman’s statement released before the event. “In light of this weekend’s planned event, we can say that it is clear that Szekesfehervar will be notorious from now on as a city that allows the glorification of Nazis.”