Anti-fascist groups in Hungary protested an annual neo-Nazi gathering held in capital Budapest on Saturday, February 11, and organized a counter mobilization. Activists from various anti-fascist groups gathered at Buda Castle in Budapest and protested the bid by neo-Nazis to mark ‘Honor Day,’ commemorating the Nazis who were killed during the Siege of Budapest by the Soviet Army in 1945. Neo-Nazis from within Hungary and abroad gather annually in Budapest in the second week of February on the occasion.
According to AntifaInfo Budapest, speakers at the ant-fascist event stated that “it is the common responsibility of the whole of society to ensure that anti-human, mass-killing fascist ideas and racist Nazi violence can never be strengthened again.”
Walter Baier, president of the European Left Party, visited the monument ‘Shoes on the Danube Bank’ in Budapest on Saturday and paid tribute to the Jews killed by Hungarian fascists from the Arrow Cross Party in 1944–45. Baier also “welcomed the Hungarian anti-fascists on behalf of his party and expressed solidarity with the anti-Nazi movement in Hungary,” Merce.hu reported.
The monument depicts the massacre of Jews and others, who were ordered to take off their shoes and then shot dead at the edge of the Danube river by fascists from the Arrow Cross Party between December 1944 and January 1945.
Vajnai Attila, from the leadership of the Workers’ Party of Hungary (2006), slammed the police authorities, the Ministry of Interior Affairs, and the conservative Fidesz party-led Hungarian government headed by Viktor Orban for covertly supporting neo-Nazi demonstrations that glorify Nazi criminals and their collaborators in Hungary during World War II.
Neo-Nazi groups in Hungary started organizing Honor Day in 1997 to commemorate the Nazi soldiers and collaborators who were killed by the Soviet Red Army during the Siege of Budapest. As part of the annual commemoration, neo-Nazis from all over Eastern Europe gather in Budapest and march through Kapistran Square and the routes in Pilisi Park Forest that were used by the Nazis who tried to escape from the advancing Soviet Red Army.
The historic 50-day of the Siege of Budapest by the Red Army began on December 26, 1944, and concluded on February 13 of the next year, with the surrender of the Nazi forces troops who were defending the city. This bid to honor those who were defending Nazi tyranny has been condemned by progressive sections across Europe and other parts of the world.
