Budapest 5th district gives approval for memorial

Budapest, January 22 (MTI) – The council of the 5th district of Budapest on Wednesday voted to allow the erection of a memorial commemorating the 70th anniversary of the German occupation of Hungary.

At the extraordinary meeting, held after the opposition appealed to the district’s mayor, Antal Rogan, to withhold his support for the memorial’s establishment, the council voted 11 in favour and three against to allow the statue featuring the Archangel Gabriel and imperial eagle to be erected in Szabadsag Square.

Rogan (Fidesz) said the memorial would immortalise the moment when Hungary lost its sovereignty, as well as commemorating everyone who was murdered, deported, abused, including several hundred thousand Holocaust victims and several tens of thousands of other victims.

Deputy leader of the main opposition Socialists told a press conference on Wednesday that the planned memorial for Hungary’s 1944 German occupation in reality commemorates the country’s occupation by the Nazis and the Nazi occupiers’ Hungarian partners.

The memorial puts the victims and perpetrators “under one roof”, thereby hurting the cause of national remembrance, said Csaba Horvath, ahead of the meeting of the council.