Time has an
article by
Rishi Iyengar about bad historical memories:
The American special envoy against anti-Semitism, Ira Forman, has expressed his ire at plans by a Hungarian city to erect a statue of a well-known wartime anti-Semitic politician. Forman said in an interview with Reuters that putting up a statue of Balint Homan was “incomprehensible”.
Homan was Hungary’s Minister of Religion and Education during World War Two, and is considered the architect of laws that promoted the persecution of the country’s Jewish population in the 1930s and 1940s. His statue is an initiative of the privately-run Balint Homan Foundation, which plans to install it in the city of Szekesfehervar, about forty miles from the capital, Budapest.
“From the US government perspective, we feel very strongly that the damage that this man did to Hungarian citizens who happened to be Jewish cannot be ignored,” said Forman, who attended a candle-lighting ceremony (photo) for the Jewish festival of Hannukkah on Sunday at the square where the statue will likely be erected.
“Honoring a man like that... we’re shocked by it,” he added.
Rico says he's
not shocked, alas; this form of bigotry isn't going away any time soon... (But maybe we should send
George Forman; that'd shake 'em up.)
No comments:
Post a Comment