Hungary’s Orban: Collaboration with Nazis was mistake, sin

18 July 2017, 2:33 pm

Edit

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary’s prime minister says his country’s collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II was a “mistake” and a “sin” as it failed to protect its Jewish community.

Viktor Orban says Tuesday that he told visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “this can never happen again,” as Hungary “will protect all its citizens.” Some 550,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

Netanyahu is the first Israeli prime minister to visit Hungary since 1989, when Hungary was still under communist rule.

A recent government campaign against Hungarian-American billionaire philanthropist George Soros has been criticized by Jewish organizations for its anti-Semitic overtones, which Orban’s government denies.

— AP