Hungarian demonstrators protest statue of Hitler ally

Several hundred don yellow stars and shout ‘Nazis go home’ at rally against unveiling of bust of Miklos Horthy

By JTA 4 November 2013, 12:40 am Edit

Regent of Hungary Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya (left) with Adolf Hitler, year unspecified. (Wikimedia Commons)

Several hundred demonstrators protested the unveiling of a bust of a Hungarian ally of Hitler outside a Budapest church.

On Sunday, protesters wore yellow Stars of David and chanted “Nazis go home” at supporters of Miklos Horthy, who was regent of Hungary from 1920 to 1944.

The unveiling was organized by a pastor with far-right ties, the French news agency AFP reported.

Horthy passed anti-Jewish laws and oversaw the first deportations of Hungarian Jews in 1944, before Germany took over the country.

Marton Gyongyosi of the far-right Jobbik party called Horthy a “national savior” during the church service in honor of the dedication, the Hungarian news agency MTI reported, according to AFP.

Gyongyosi has made anti-Semitic comments in the past and last year called for a list of Hungarian Jews to be drawn up as they posed “a national risk.”