In 2011 the Budapest City Council led by Mayor István Tarlós renamed one of the most beautiful squares in Budapest. After 64 years Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s name was stripped from the oblong square in front of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
This decision was a slap in the face of the United States, Hungarian Americans were offended and the Roosevelt family was outraged.
Two years before, Jobbik, Hungary’s neo-Nazi party started the campaign. Horthy-loving Jobbik activists consider Roosevelt an enemy of Hungary, “a Jew” calling him Jewsvelt. (Roosevelt’s family was Episcopalian.) In 2010 Jobbik MPs Mr. Márton Gyöngyösi and Mr. Gábor Staudt proposed in Parliament the removal of Roosevelt’s name. MPs thought that the idea was crazy and the proposal got no support.
A year later Jobbik targeted the Budapest City Council. Now they had backing from Fidesz and Mayor Tarlós. Even the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Mr. József Pálinkás, came out to support the anti-Roosevelt proposal.
Obama’s Ambassador to Budapest at the time was Eleni Kounalakis. She first opposed the decision but later issued a statement that the US “understands that the city of Budapest has decided to rename Roosevelt Square.” Understands? “Mayor István Tarlós has assured us that the change in no way diminishes Hungary’s respect for President Roosevelt.” I had to pinch myself.
The granddaughter of FDR, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt Seagraves issued an angry letter to Mayor Tarlós. The Mayor arrogantly responded: „The decision is final..” (Read Tarlós response in Hungarian.)
Today Jobbik’s Mr. Gyöngyösi is still in Parliament. He got worldwide media attention when he urged Hungarians to draw up lists of Jews who pose a “national security risk.” His colleague, Mr. Staudt resigned from Parliament and is currently embroiled in a multimillion dollar criminal fraud case.
Mr. Pálinkás had a change of heart. Now he is lobbying against Orbán’s policies and not a friend of Mayor Tarlós anymore. He has never apologized for his role in the Roosevelt Square name change.
Ambassador Kounalakis is the Lieutenant Governor of California. She recently tweeted: “My time as US Ambassador to Hungary was a 4-year window into some of the darkest corners of anti-Semitism.”
71-year-old István Tarlós is up for reelection and it seems that he has a good chance to serve another term as Mayor of Budapest.
We call on Ambassador Cornstein and the Hungarian-American Congressional Caucus to restore Roosevelt’s name. Mayor Tarlós and his Budapest City Council should issue an apology. The ill-conceived removal of Roosevelt’s name was an insult to every American, especially to the memory of those Hungarian Americans who gave their lives in the Army during WWII in the fight against fascism.
György Lázár