Shoah Shoes: The riverside memorial in Budapest is a focal point of ceremonies marking Hungary?s Holocast rememberance. Image by getty images

A Hungarian lawmaker called the Holocaust “part of Hungarian history,” during ceremonies marking the country’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“The Holocaust is part of the Hungarian history,” said Zoltán Pokorni, from the ruling right of center party Fidesz, during a ceremony Tuesday at the memorial site Shoes on the Danube Promenade in Budapest. “Those who were killed were Hungarians and those who killed were also Hungarians,” he said.

Exhibition openings, conferences, and theater performances also were held throughout the country in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The Budapest National Theater on Tuesday staged the play “The Investigation,” by German playwright Peter Weiss and written in 1965, which depicts the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of 1963-1965, the first time the play has been staged in Hungary since the 60s.

Hungary marks its Holocaust Remembrance Day each year on April 16, the day in 1944 that Jews began to be forced into ghettos in Hungary.

The deportation of Hungarian Jews from the countryside started in mid-May 1944, and within two-and-a-half months over 500,000 Jews were deported to extermination camps, including 440,000 Jews to Auschwitz, where every third victim was a Hungarian Jew.

All together 600,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount