The Toronto-based Jewish Tribune published an important and startling piece, based on an interview with Hungarian author Ákos Kertész, who was forced to flee from Hungary, following a series of brutal anti-Semitic attacks against him. Canada accepts very few refugee claimants from Hungary, but Mr. Kertész’s claim was approved. For some time, Mr. Kertész was not able to speak openly about what happened to him, but he now spoke at length with the Toronto weekly. “I’m an 80-year-old man. I am not a coward, not easily freightened, but the venom that was whipped up against me was truly fierce,” Mr. Kertész told Daniel Smajovits of the Jewish Tribune. “Orbán stood up in the Hungarian Parliament and called me a racist, anti-Hungarian and threatened to pass special legislation to divest me of my Kossuth Prize [Equivalent to the Order of Canada], which is the highest artistic award given to a Hungarian artist by the state. I was also not surprised that no sooner had I raised my voice, I was immediately condemned as ‘a dirty Jew.’ This apparently spontaneous public outburst against me was publicly orchestrated by the government and it was framed in a manner that suggested that once again ‘a dirty Jew’ is attacking Hungarians,” added Mr. Kertész in his interview with the Toronto-based paper.
The Jewish Tribune referred to Mr. Orbán has Hungary’s “far-right” prime minister, observing that with his election in 2010, the roots of anti-Semitism that had always been present under Hungarian society really began to spread. “Hungary introduced the world’s first anti-Semitic laws in 1920, when Hitler was hardly even on the horizon. Anti-Semitism did not come to Hungary from Nazi Germany. Hungary pioneered it and it was this pioneering spirit that eventually united Hungary with the Third Reich as a loyal ally, one which fought heroically to the last day of the war on the side of the Nazis,” added Mr. Kertész.
Since fleeing to Canada, Mr. Kertész has made a new home for himself in Montreal.
The full article in the Jewish Tribune can be read by clicking here.
Ákos Kertész
