[redcarpet]

The Holocaust Denialism is getting more respectable and official in Hungary.

And with Orbán currently under fire from the European Union over crackdowns on democratic institutions, his government's portrayal of Hungary's past reveals much about how it sees its future.

Government officials first floated the House of Fates back in 2013, with the aim of telling Hungary's Holocaust history primarily through the stories of child survivors and victims. The ambitious plan was to complete the museum the following year, in time for the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust in 2014.

But the project has all but ground to a halt amid concerns from leading Holocaust scholars that the House of Fates will downplay Hungary's role in the deportation and persecution of Jews.

The destruction of Hungarian Jewry as ‘an exclusively German crime’
In 1944, the deportation of Jews in German-occupied Hungary to Auschwitz began, with hundreds of thousands sent to their deaths in the space of weeks. By the end of the Holocaust, according to Yad Vashem, some 565,000 Hungarian Jews had been murdered. Today, the country has a Jewish population of around 100,000 according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.

Some scholars say the House of Fates fails to adequately address the role played by Hungarian authorities and the wider society both in the lead-up to and during this deportation.

The controversy comes at a delicate time for Orbán. His populist Fidesz Party swept into power in 2010, and most recently won a landslide victory again in April this year. But his anti-migrant policies, which proved popular in Hungary, have also been blasted by the EU.


In response, Orbán has vowed to protect Hungary’s borders from the “pro-migrant forces” of the EU. Some historians warn that Hungary’s nationalist rhetoric is also coloring its view of history.

“There is a strong trend in Hungary today to present the destruction of Hungarian Jewry during the Holocaust as an exclusively German crime and, except for a small group of Hungarian thugs, to ignore the role and responsibility of the Hungarian authorities and society,” wrote the director of Yad Vashem Libraries, Dr. Robert Rozett, in a lengthy statement about the institution's concerns.
He said that "visitors to the House of Fates are to be shown and taught that, except for a tiny, criminal and fanatic minority, the citizens of Hungary were essentially blameless for what was inflicted upon their Jewish neighbors.”

He’s not alone in thinking this. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington are also alarmed by the museum’s apparently “distorting” view of history.

[Potemkin]

Technically speaking, this is not Holocaust Denialism. They aren't denying that the Holocaust ever happened, but are 'merely' trying to blame the Germans for it all. Needless to say, this is not historically accurate.

[Rich]

Noemon Edit: Rule 3 Violation Holocaust Denial

[One Degree]

The only problem I have with the Holocaust is the ‘uniqueness’ it is given. Using group identity as a reason for persecution was hardly unique to Nazis. It was common in this era. The US put Japanese Americans in concentration camps for example. The only thing unique seems to be their choice to use methods other than bullets and prison to eliminate them. It is similar to US slavery in the ‘seriousness of the crime’ seems to based upon ‘how efficient’ they did it rather than what they did, coupled with happening ‘later’ in the history of changing attitudes.
Of course, we should remember they were both ‘losers’. This increases their guilt many fold in our minds.

[colliric]

Oh for God's sake just build the damn museum....

If it needs to be fixed up, or not pleasing everyone, just do it once it's up and running. Much easier.

Bullshit complaints from the Jewish Lobby about it not being enough of a holocaust guilt-trip as usual. Build it now, fix it later if needed.

They're not trying to blame anyone, they're just trying to build a museum and obviously a certain group is stupidly roadblocking it when THEY VERY WELL KNOW they could easily just fix it up once it's up and running.

[blackjack21]

As a practical matter, I would think trying to exact "justice" for the Holocaust other than the immediate perpetrators is likely to create more hostility toward Jews than sympathy for their plight during the Holocaust. It puts entire populations on the defensive and more or less repeats the alleged error of assigning blame to groups. For example:

“There is a strong trend in Hungary today to present the destruction of Hungarian Jewry during the Holocaust as an exclusively German crime and, except for a small group of Hungarian thugs, to ignore the role and responsibility of the Hungarian authorities and society,” wrote the director of Yad Vashem Libraries, Dr. Robert Rozett, in a lengthy statement about the institution's concerns. He said that "visitors to the House of Fates are to be shown and taught that, except for a tiny, criminal and fanatic minority, the citizens of Hungary were essentially blameless for what was inflicted upon their Jewish neighbors.”

One of the aspects of campaigns against Holocaust denial is that people rarely discuss why the Jews were targeted, among other groups. Oddly, they also seem to focus on the campaign against Jews exclusively, while ignoring the persecution of homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, the mentally handicapped, etc. Instead, people are trying to teach a "lesson of the Holocaust" that it is wrong to single out groups for persecution with a critical focus on Jews. As a logical exercise, I don't take issue with that assertion, as group persecution typically ends up persecuting many innocent individuals. However, errors of omission--a common exercise in anti-prejudice campaigns--tends only to address the "wrongness" of singling out minority groups for oppression while completely ignoring the causes for why it was done. While some may find the rationale for why something was done a justification, discussing the rationale is not itself a justification for persecution. Understanding the rationale of the perpetrator sheds light on the mindset of the perpetrators and what motivated them. Consequently, it seems nothing has been learned from the Holocaust other than the Jews are still very upset about it. We have seen large scale killings in the wake of the Holocaust in Cambodia, Darfur, and Rwanda among others with the West doing next to nothing to stop it, while still playing this "holier than thou" role of finger wagging. We have also seen the almost wholesale liquidation of Christians in the Middle East, and the left more or less cheers that on. I guess Jews hope that by pointing out the horrors of the Holocaust that they can prevent such an event from happening again. Given the antipathy for Israelis among the political left and among Muslim populations, and the wholesale liquidation of Christians from the Middle East (with very little help or relief from Jews, I might note), the campaign against "holocaust denialism" doesn't seem to be having much of an effect on preventing further atrocities to Jews or other groups.

Elie Wiesel argues that "love" is not the opposite of "hate", it is "apathy" or "indifference". That seems to be at the root of the charge of "Holocaust Denier"--that a person not be allowed to perpetrate indifference to the Holocaust. Yet, perpetrating indifference is done all the time in other contexts--the wholesale liquidation of Christians from the Middle East being a fine example of something that is absolutely okay with media elites, the left, atheists, Muslims, and non-Christians generally.

They aren't denying that the Holocaust ever happened, but are 'merely' trying to blame the Germans for it all. Needless to say, this is not historically accurate.

Clearly, some Hungarian authorities were culpable too. Yet, the implication seems to be that "Hungarian society" as a whole had some sort of obligation to stop persecution of Jews from happening. How much help have Jews been to stopping the liquidation of Christians from the Middle East, for example? Indeed, the Christian population in Israel is going down, not up, even as Christians nearby are fleeing persecution. People living in dangerous times tend to be about self-preservation, not about preventing harm to others. That seems almost natural to me. I would think it normal for Israelis, for example, to be apathetic about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East rather than giving them sanctuary in Israel. Yet, it seems that many Jews feel that non-Jews should feel sympathy for Jews when they face oppression, while not holding themselves to expressing sympathy for and taking action on behalf of other oppressed groups as well.

I agree that the Holocaust should not be forgotten. However, I do not believe for a second that remembrance is going to prevent atrocities from happening again. Indeed, they already have happened again.

[Beren]

Even its name is controversial because it suggests it was their fate, I guess it means to refer to Fatelessness by Nobel laureate Imre Kertész.

Also, Hungarians always blame someone else and have never been really told how the Holocaust actually was. They're not aware that Auschwitz was full of Jews from Hungary at the height of its capacity and how actively the Hungarian state apparatus, the gendarmerie and the state rails especially, collaborated with Eichmann.

[ThirdTerm]

Some scholars say the House of Fates fails to adequately address the role played by Hungarian authorities and the wider society both in the lead-up to and during this deportation.

After Nazi Germany's defeat at Stalingrad, Hungary was trying to back out of the alliance with Germany because the Soviets were too mighty to be defeated. Understandably, Hungarians didn't want to die for a lost cause in Soviet Russia. As a result, German troops invaded Hungary in order to set up a new government royals to Germany and Adolf Eichmann began implementing the “Final Solution.” When 500,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, Hungarian authorities had no choice but to stand aside and watch silently. Poland was in a silimar situation as the area which included the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was directly controlled as if it were Germany.

[skinster]

Related:

[Beren]

There's a love affair with Putin too, and brotherhood with Erdogan, surprisingly though it doesn't work with Trump somehow.