Engel Leads Bipartisan Congressional Group Expressing Concern Over Nazi Occupation Monument in Hungary

Press Release

Representative Eliot L. Engel, the leading Democrat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, today was joined by 29 senators and representatives in calling on Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban to reconsider his current plans for the construction of a controversial monument in Budapest commemorating the victims of the Nazi occupation of Hungary. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the lawmakers expressed their concerns that current plans for the monument ignore the pro-Nazi Hungarian government's role in the deportation of more than half a million Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, most of whom were murdered in Auschwitz.

"We believe that the current plans for the monument do history a disservice and don't tell the whole story of the Nazi occupation. If the Hungarian government proceeds as planned, many people both in Hungary and around world will view this monument as an effort to sweep a tragic part of history under the rug," said Rep. Engel. "The Hungarian government should build a memorial that lays out the entire Hungarian narrative of the Nazi Occupation--not one that whitewashes the truth."

The initiative of Prime Minister Orban, which coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Nazi occupation, has been heavily criticized by the Jewish community in Hungary, including the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities, and the greater international Jewish community.

Rep. Engel is also Chairman of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians.

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